Memoirs of a Space Traveler

“I understand,” I broke in. “Decantor, in a sense you are right. But right only in that your discovery has demonstrated — today to me, tomorrow perhaps to the world — that the soul is unnecessary; that the immortality treated in the sacred books, gospels, korans, Babylonian epics, vedas, and folk tales you cite is of no use to man. Anyone faced with the eternity you are ready to bestow on him will feel, I guarantee you, what I feel: the greatest aversion and fear. The thought that your promise could become my fate horrifies me. So, then, you have proved that humanity has been deluding itself for thousands of years. You have shattered that delusion.”

“You mean, no one will need my soul?” he asked in a suddenly wooden voice.

“I am sure of it. How can you think otherwise? Decantor! Would you want it? After all, you are human, too!”

“I already told you. I never felt the need for immortality. I believed, however, that that was my particular aberration, that humanity was of a different opinion. I wanted to satisfy others, not myself. I sought a problem that would be among the most difficult, one worthy of my abilities. I found it and solved it. In this respect, it was a personal thing; from an intellectual point of view, the problem interested me solely as a specific task to be tackled using the proper technology and resources. I took literally what the greatest thinkers in history had written. Tichy — you must have read of it. The fear of cessation, of the end, of consciousness suffering destruction at the time of its greatest richness, when it is ready to bear its finest fruits… at the end of a long life… They all repeated this. Their dream was to commune — with eternity. I have created that communion. Tichy, perhaps they …? Perhaps the most outstanding individuals? The geniuses…?”

I shook my head. “You can try, but I doubt that even one… No, impossible.”

“But why?” he asked, and for the first time his voice trembled. “You think it is not… worth anything to anyone? That no one will want it? How can that be?”

“That’s how it is,” I said.

“Let’s not be hasty,” he implored. “Tichy, everything is still in my hands. I can adapt, alter… I can endow the soul with artificial senses. Of course, that would bar it from eternity, but if the senses are so important to them… the ears, the eyes…”

“And what would those eyes see?” I asked.

He was silent.

“The freezing of Earth… the collapse of the galaxies… the death of the stars in black infinity, isn’t that so?” I said slowly.

He was silent.

“People do not want immortality,” I continued. “They simply do not want to die. They want to live, Decantor. They want to feel the ground beneath their feet, see the clouds overhead, love other people, be with them, and think. Nothing more. Everything that has been said beyond that is a lie. An unconscious lie. I doubt that many would want to hear you out as patiently as I have. Don’t even think of getting customers.”

Decantor stood motionless for a moment, staring at the white package in front of him on the desk. Suddenly he picked it up and, with a slight nod to me, headed for the door.

“Decantor!” I cried. He stopped at the threshold. “What are you going to do with that?”

“Nothing,” he answered coldly.

“Please… come back. One moment more. We can’t leave it like this.”