Tomorrow and Tomorrow

“Very well.” Rozi Tegger, like Par Leon, could have been any age. She had thick, chestnut-brown hair, and now she ran her fingers through it. “Let me begin at the real beginning, fifteen years before Melissa Bierly was born.

“The structure of DNA had been known for fifty years, and the first mapping of the human genome had just been completed. Molecular biologists were riding high. A few people were already worrying about the ethical problems involved in playing with human genetic structure, but none of the rules that we have now had been put in place. In fact, to our eyes your original time is most perplexing. Those who felt comfortable about gene manipulation to cure disease were often the same people who were strongly opposed to mandatory genetic selection to avoid disease. Eugenics was a socially unacceptable word.

“When technology flourishes and suitable laws are not in place to constrain its uses, there will surely be trouble.

“A group of scientists with strong social and political goals decided to employ the emerging technology to benefit the human race. They were well intentioned, we do not dispute that. They were also permitted to operate with a freedom unthinkable today. They saw ways to modify the human genome so as to create persons stronger, more intelligent, more long-lived, and more resistant to disease. That is what they did.”

“Superman,” Drake murmured. But he did so in English, and Rozi Tegger frowned at him in confusion.

“Superior men,” Drake added, this time in Universal. “Supermen.”

Tegger nodded. “And superior women. Do I have to say more? We did not change the body of Melissa Bierly upon resurrection, as yours was changed. We did not need to. You saw her, yet you were exposed to little of her full potential. She could run to the top of Birhan, or mountains far higher than that, without breathing equipment and without feeling fatigue. She could spend a winter night naked amid mountaintop snow and ice, and come down unharmed. She could hang from the cliff where we found you by one finger, hour after hour.

“But those are mere physical improvements, and we judge them trivial. Of far greater interest are the mental characteristics of Melissa Bierly and others like her. She has outstanding intellect. In two months she has come to understand more of this time, and what is in it, than most of us. She mastered access to the general data banks as though born to them. She became conversant with a dozen languages, from Economics to Astronautics, and made their cross-connections with ease.

“But these accomplishments are no better than those of many machines; although we can admire them, they are not the reason for Melissa’s resurrection. My own field of study is…” She paused, then said three syllables in Universal that meant nothing to Drake. “I’m sorry, I know that the subject did not exist in your time. You can think of it as the study of all modes of influence. How does one individual persuade another? It is certainly not by words alone. By sound, yes, but also by body position and touch and pheromonal transfer and many other agents. This has been true through all of history. It may well predate the use of spoken language. What fascinated me about Melissa were the records of incredible persuasive force reported for her and her kin. I could not explain it, and I wanted to see for myself. Could it be real?”

“It’s real.” Drake saw in his mind the sparkling sapphire eyes. “It’s more than what you say. She didn’t persuade me. She made me want to do whatever she liked. If she had asked me to jump off the cliff with her, I think I would have done it. But you haven’t explained what happened. Why did she jump?”

“She did not jump. She dived. The distinction is important.” Rozi Tegger looked at Par Leon, who nodded grimly.

“Go on. I know this is especially painful for you, but Merlin has earned our explanation.”

“Very well.” Tegger turned unhappily to Drake. “You spent days with Melissa. Did you ever see changes of mood in her?”

“You couldn’t miss it. Most of the time she was full of bounce and cheerfulness. But now and again she seemed angry or worried or desperate. It could switch in a second.”

“But you never questioned her as to the way in which she died, before she entered the cryowombs?”

“We didn’t talk about that.”

“Or of her siblings and kinfolk?”

“It never came up.”

“That is not surprising. There were sixteen children in that ‘superior’ experimental group, including Melissa herself. So far as I can tell, each of them enjoyed an equal degree of physical and mental advantage. However, it is impossible to prove this. No other was placed with Second Chance. And for good reason. All of them, except Melissa, died in such a way that the brain was destroyed. All of them committed suicide. So did Melissa, but she did it by slashing her throat. She thought that no one would find her body for hours, by which time her brain would be past recovery. But she was wrong. She was discovered by accident, very quickly, and prepared for the cryowomb by the scientists who had made her. They knew that they had created an incomplete superior form, one who for unknown reasons was driven to self-destruction. They left posterity to decide where they had gone wrong.”

Rozi Tegger sighed. The aircar had entered a deep shaft and was descending. Their journey was almost over.

“And I,” she went on, “I in my hubris believed that I could succeed where my ancestors had failed. I would’ resurrect the one remaining ‘superwoman,’ to borrow your word. I would make changes, very minor ones, not to her body but to her mind. And then my experiment could begin. Melissa would be allowed to go her way; and by observing her I would learn the nature of her unnatural power to persuade others.

“But in truth I learned only one thing: that the changes I made to Melissa were useless; that the death wish is as strong in her as ever.”

“She didn’t know about the safety service,” Par Leon added, “any more than you did, Merlin. And she didn’t just want to die.”

“She wanted total self-destruction,” Rozi Tegger said. “You saw how she dived. She wanted to do what she had failed to do five centuries ago. She wanted her brain so completely pulped that there could be no thought of repair and resurrection.”

Drake saw again in his mind that dwindling blue-clad doll figure, dropping forever down the stark cliff face. Melissa

knew how to control her body attitude perfectly. She would have held the swan dive to the end. If the gray cloud of tiny rescue machines had not interfered, her head would have smashed and splattered against solid rock.

He felt sick: at the thought of what might have happened to Melissa, and also at the realization of the effortless power she had held over him. She had made him ignore his own vows in order to do her bidding.

“But Melissa is still alive. What will happen to her now?” He was almost afraid to hear the answer. If she were released, and came back to him…

“That decision is not mine to make,” Tegger said heavily. The car had come to a halt, and she was climbing down from it with the stiff-limbed action of an old, old woman. “It was decreed in advance, before permission could be given for my experiment. If I failed, Melissa Bierly would once more enter Second Chance. That is happening even as we speak. She will remain in the cryowombs until someone — some person much cleverer than I — can free her of that random and irresistible urge for self-immolation.”

“Will you be all right?” Par Leon spoke anxiously, and he was addressing not Drake but Rozi Tegger. “Shouldn’t you stay a while with us before you go home?”

“I can safely leave.” Rozi Tegger gave Leon a grim smile. “I thank you for your consideration, but despite my depressed mood I do not propose to do away with myself. For I am, as I have proved to you so very clearly, far from being a superwoman.”

Par Leon tried to pretend that the whole episode was over. Drake had to visit Leon and corner him, in person, the next day before they started work.

“There is something that was never explained to me,” he said. “I did not ask you when Rozi Tegger was with us, but I think you owe me an answer now.”

Par Leon was not good at dissembling. He craned his neck to one side and would not look at Drake. “Indeed?”

“Indeed. I can see very well why Rozi Tegger resurrected Melissa, because it related to her own field of study. But you never met Melissa, and you were never exposed to her power of persuasion. She could add nothing