'Let me see that,' I said, pointing at the sheet of paper. Lareen hesitated, and for a moment I thought she was going to refuse. But then she passed it over.
I read through it quickly. It was in detail accurate, though selectively. It listed my birth date, parents, sister, addresses, schools, medical treatment. Further on were more unexpected details. There was a list (incomplete) of my friends, places I had often visited, and, disturbingly, details of howr I had voted, the tithes I had paid, the political society I joined at university, my contacts with a fringe theatre group, my connections with people who were monitoring the Covenant. There was a section on what the computer called 'imbalance indications': that I drank frequently, had friends of dubious political affiliation, was fickle with women, was given to unreasonable rages when younger, was described as 'moody and introverted' by one of my tutors, was described as 'only So per cent reliable' by a former employer, had been granted deferment of the draft on 'psychological' grounds, and that for a time I had been involved with a young woman descended from Glaundian immigrants.
'Where the hell does this stuff come from?' I said, brandishing the sheet.
'Isn't it accurate?'
'Never mind that! It's a complete distortion!'
'But is it factually accurate?'
'Yes . . . but it misses out a lot of things.'
'We didn't ask for these details. This is just what came out of the computer.'
'Do they have files like this on everyone?'
'I've no idea,' Lareen said. 'You must ask your own government that. All we're concerned with is your life e.xpectaney, although this extra information can have a bearing. Have you read the medical summary?'
'Where is it?'
Lareen left her seat and stood beside me. She pointed with her pencil.
'These figures are our codes. Don't worry about them. This is where your life expectancy is printed.'
The computer had printed 35.46 years.
'I don't believe it,' I said. 'It must be a mistake.'
'We're not often wrong.'
'What does the figure mean? Is that how long I have to live?'
'That's the age at which the computer says you are most likely to die.'
'But what am I suffering from? I don't _feel_ ill!'
Beside me, Seri took my hand. 'Listen to her, Peter.'
Lareen had returned to her seat behind the desk. 'I can arrange for a medical examination, if you like.'
'Is there something wrong with my heart? Is it something like that?'
'The computer doesn't say. But you can be cured here.'
I was hardly listening. All of a sudden my body felt as if it were a mass of previously unnoticed symptoms. I remembered the numerous aches and pains I had felt: indigestion, bruises, stiff legs, a sore back after working too long, the hangovers I sometimes suffered, the headaches at university, the coughing with head colds. All seemed innocuous and explicable at the time, but now I wondered. Did they hint at something worse? I imagined clotted arteries and neoplasms and gall-stones and ruptures, lurking within me, destroying me.
Yet it still had a faintly ridiculous aspect: in spite of everything I continued to feel as healthy as ever.
I resented utterly the fact that the Lotterie had thrust this on me. I stood up, looked out of the window, and across the lawns towards the sea. I was free, under no compulsion; Seri and I could leave immediately.
But then the realization: no matter what was wrong with me, there was a cure for it! If I took the athanasia treatment I should never again be ill, I should live forever. Illness thwarted.
It was an exhilarating feeling, one that seemed to give me great power and freedom. I suddenly realized how inhibiting was the prospect of illness: that one was cautious with food, or wary of too little exercise, on too much, aware of the signs of advancing age, shortage of wind, not getting enough sleep, or drinking on smoking too much. I would never need worry about such things again: I could abuse my body as I wished, or ignore it. I should never weaken, never decline.
Already, at the advanced age of twenty-nine, I had felt the first stirrings of envy of those younger than me. I saw the effortlessly agile bodies of younger men, the slender unsupported bodies of girls. They all looked so fit, as if good health were something to be taken for granted.
Perhaps someone older than myself would find this amusing to contemplate, but from my point of view I had already noticed myself slowing up. After the athanasia treatment I would remain forever twenty-nine. In a few years' time, those young adults I secretly envied would be my physical equals, yet I would have extra years of insight. And with every new generation I would acquire a greater mental stature.
Given the jolt, the news of my life expectancy, I began to recognize that the Lotterie's treatment was subtly different from Deloinne's interpretation. Because I read his book at an impressionable age, Deloinne had influenced me too much. I made his ideas my own, without questioning them.
Deloinne saw athanasia as an abnegation of life, yet really it was an affirmation.
As Seri had pointed out, the coming of death brings the destruction of memory. But life is memory. As long as I am alive, as long as I wake every morning, I remember my life, and as the years pass my memory becomes enriched.
Old men are wise, not by nature but by absorption and retention, and by the accumulation of sufficient memories to be able to select what is important.
Memory is continuity too, a sense of identity and place and consequence.
