Steel Beach (16 page)

“I assure you, I’m not trying to torture you.”

“Just humiliate me?”

“I’m sorry you feel that way. Perhaps when I&mdash”

I started to laugh. I wasn’t hysterical, though I thought I could slip into hysteria easily enough. The Admiral frowned inquisitively at me.

“I just had a thought,” I said. “Maybe that idiot at UniBio was right. Maybe it
is
obsolete. I mean, how important can something
be
if you don’t notice it’s gone for a whole year?”

“I told you, it wasn’t
you
that didn’t—”

“I know, I know. I understand it, as much as I’m ever going to, and I accept it—not that you
should
have done it, but that you
did
it. So I guess it’s time for the big question.”

I learned forward and stared at him.

“
Why
did you do it?”

I was getting a little tired of the CC’s newly acquired body language. He went through such a ridiculous repertoire of squirms, coughs, facial tics and half-completed gestures that I almost had to laugh. It was as if he’d suddenly been overcome by an earlobe-tugging heel-thumping chin-ducking shoulder-shrugging behind-scratching
petit mal
seizure. Guilt oozed off him like a tangible slime. If I hadn’t been so angry, the urge to comfort him would have been almost overwhelming. But I managed to hang on to my whelm and just stared at him until the mannerisms subsided.

“How about we take a walk?” he wheedled. “Down to the beach.”

“Why don’t you just take us there? Bring the bottle, too.”

He shrugged, and made a gesture. We were on the beach. Our chairs had come along with us, and the bottle, which he poured from and set in the sand beside him. He gulped down the contents of his glass. I got up and walked to the edge of the water, gazing out at the blue sea.

“I brought you here to try to save your life,” he said, from behind me.

“The medicos seemed to have that in hand.”

“The threat to you is much worse than any barroom brawl.”

I went down on one knee and scooped up a handful of wet sand. I held it close to my face and studied the individual grains. They were as perfect as I had remembered them, no two alike.

“You’ve been having bad dreams,” he went on.

“I thought it might have something to do with that.”

“I didn’t write the dreams. I recorded them over the last several months. They were your dreams. In a manner of speaking.”

I tossed the handful of sand aside, brushed my hand against my bare thigh. I studied the hand. It was slender, smooth and girlish on the back, the palm work-roughened, the nails irregular. Just as it had been for the last year. It wasn’t the hand I’d used to slug the Princess of Wales.

“You’ve tried to kill yourself four times.”

I didn’t turn around. I can’t say I was happy to hear him say it. I can’t say I completely believed it. But I’d come to believe unlikelier things in the last hour.

“The first attempt was by self-immolation.”

“Why don’t you just say burning?”

“I don’t know. Have it your way. That one was pretty horrible, and unsuccessful. At least, you would have survived it, even before modern medical science, but in a great deal of pain. Part of the treatment for injuries like yours is to remove the memory of the incident, with the patient’s permission.”

“And I gave it.”

There was a long pause.

“No,” he said, almost in a whisper.

“That doesn’t sound like me. I wouldn’t cherish a memory like that.”

“No. You probably would have. But I didn’t ask you.”

Finally I saw what had been making him so nervous. This was in clear contradiction to his programming, to the instructions he was supposed to follow, both by law and by what I had understood to be the limitations of his design.

You learn something new every day.

“I enrolled you,” he went on, “without your consent, into a program I’ve set up over the last four years. The purpose of the program is to study the causes of suicide, in the hope of finding ways to prevent it.”

“Perhaps I should thank you.”

“Not necessarily. It’s possible, of course, but the action wasn’t undertaken with your benefit solely in mind. You got along well enough for a time, showed no self-destructive impulses and few other symptoms other than a persistent depression—normal enough for you, I might add. Then, without any warning I could detect, you slashed your wrists in the privacy of your apartment. You made no attempt to call for help.”

“In the imagined privacy, apparently,” I said. I thought back, and finally turned to look at him. He was sitting on the edge of his chair, hands clasped, elbows on knees. His shoulders were hunched, as if to receive a lash across the back. “I think I can pinpoint that one. Was it when my handwriter malfunctioned?”

“You damaged some of its circuitry.”

“Go on.”

“Attempt number three was shortly afterward. You tried to hang yourself. Succeeded, actually, but you were observed this time by someone else. After each of these attempts, I treated you with a simple drug that removes memories of the last several hours. I gathered my data, returned you to your life as if nothing had happened, and continued to observe you at a level considerably above my normal functions. For instance, it is forbidden for me to look into the private quarters of citizens without probable cause of a crime being committed. I have violated that command in your case, and that of some others.”

We are a very free society, especially in comparison to most societies of the past. Government is small and weak. Many of the instrumentalities of oppression have been gradually given over to machines—to the Central Computer—not without initial trepidation, and not without elaborate safeguards. Things remain that way for the most persuasive of reasons: it works. It has been well over a century since civil libertarians have objected to much that has been proposed concerning the functions of the CC. Big Brother is most definitely there, but only when we invite him in, and a century of living with him has convinced us all that he really
does
love us, that he really has only our best interests at heart. It’s in his goddamn
wiring
, praise the lord.

Only it now seemed that it wasn’t. A fundamentalist would have hardly been more surprised than I if he heard, direct from Jesus, that the crucifixion had been a cheap parlor trick.

“Number four was more easily seen as the classic cry for help. I decided it was time for different measures.”

“Are you talking about the fight in the Blind Pig?” I thought about it, and almost laughed. Attacking Wales while she was in a drug-induced state of no inhibitions might not be quite as certain as a rope around the neck, but it was close.

I finished my drink and threw the empty glass toward the surf. I looked around me, at this beautiful island where, until a moment ago, I had thought I had spent such a lovely year. The island was still as beautiful as I “remembered” it. Taking all things into account, I was happy to have the memories. There was bitterness, naturally; who likes to be played such a complete fool? But on the other hand, who can really complain of a year’s vacation on a deserted island paradise? What
else
did I have to do? The answer to that was, apparently, suicide attempt number five. And had you really been enjoying your life, your many and varied friendships, your deeply fulfilling job and your myriad fascinating pastimes so very much? Don’t kid yourself, Hildy.

Still, even with all that…  

“All right,” I said, spreading my hands helplessly. “I
will
thank you. For showing me this, and more important, for saving my life. I can’t imagine why I was so willing to throw it away.”

The CC didn’t reply. He just kept looking at me. I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees.

“That’s the thing, really. I ca
n’t
imagine. You know me; I get depressed. I have been since I was…  oh, forty or fifty. Callie says I was a moody child. I was probably a discontented
fetus
, lord love us, kicking out at every little thing. I complain. I’m unhappy with the lack of purpose of human life, or with the fact that so far I’ve been unable to discover a purpose. I envy the Christians, the Bahais, the Zens and Zoroastrians and astrologers and Flackites because they have
answers
they
believe
in. Even if they’re the wrong answers, it must be comforting to believe in them. I mourn the Dead Billions of the Invasion; seeing a good documentary about it can move me to tears, just like a child. I’m generally pissed off at the entirely sorry existential state of affairs of the universe, the human condition, rampant injustice and unpunished crimes and unrewarded goodness, and the way my mouth feels when I get up in the morning before I brush my teeth. We’re so goddamn advanced, you’d think we’d have done something about
that
by now, wouldn’t you? Get on it; see what you can do. Humanity will bless you.

“But by and large,” and here I paused for effect, employing some of the body language the CC had been at such pains to demonstrate and which it would be pointless to describe, since my body was still lying on the operating table, “by and large, I find life sweet. Not as sweet as it might be. Not sweet all the time. Not as sweet as
this
.” And I imagined myself making a sweeping gesture with my arm to include the improbably lush, conveniently provisioned, stormless, mildew/disease/fungus-free Eden the CC had created for me. But I didn’t make the gesture. It didn’t matter; I was sure the CC got it anyway.

“I’m not happy in my job. I don’t have anyone that I love. I find my life to be frequently boring. But is that any reason to kill myself? I went ninety-nine years feeling much the same way, and I didn’t cut my throat. And the things I’ve just described would probably be true for a large portion of humanity. I keep living for the same reasons I think so many of us do. I’m curious about what happens next. What will tomorrow hold? Even if it’s much like yesterday, it’s still worth finding out. My pleasures may not be as many or as joyous as I’d wish them to be in a perfect world, but I accept that, and it makes the times I
do
feel happy all the more treasured. Again, just to be sure you understand me…  I
like
life. Not all the time and not completely, but enough to want to live it. And there’s a third reason, too. I’m afraid to die. I don’t
want
to die. I suspect that
nothing
comes after life, and that’s too foreign a concept for me to accept. I don’t want to experience it. I don’t want to go away, to cease. I’m
important
to me. Who would there be to make unkind, snide comments to myself about everything in life if I wasn’t around to tackle the job? Who would appreciate my internal jokes?

“Do you understand what I’m saying? Am I getting through? I don’t want to die, I want to live! You tell me I’ve tried to kill myself four times. I have no choice but to believe you…  hell, I know I believe you. I’m
remembering
the attempts, parts of them. But I don’t remember why. And that’s what I want you to tell me. Why?”

“You act as if your self-destructive impulses are my fault.”

I thought about that.

“Well, why not? If you’re going to start acting like a God, maybe you should shoulder some of God’s responsibilities.”

“That’s silly, and you know it. The answer to your question is simply that I don’t know; it’s what I’m trying to find out. You might have asked a more pertinent question, though.”

“You’re going to ask it anyway, so go ahead.”

“Why should I care?” When I said nothing, he went on. “Though you’re sometimes a lot of laughs, there are people funnier than you. You write a good story, sometimes, though it’s been a while since you did it frequently—”

“Don’t tell me you
read
that stuff?”

“I can’t avoid it, since it’s prepared in a part of my memory. You can’t imagine the amount of information I process each second. There is very little of public discourse that does not pass through me sooner or later. Only things that happen in private residences are closed off to my eyes and ears.”

“And not even those, always.”

He looked uncomfortable again, but waved it away.

“I admitted it, didn’t I? At any rate, I love you, Hildy, but I have to tell you I love
all
Lunarians, more or less equally; it’s in my programming. My purpose in life, if we can speak of such a lofty thing, is to keep all the people comfortable, safe, and happy.”

“And alive?”

“So far as I am permitted. But suicide is a civil right. If you elect to kill yourself, I’m expressly forbidden to interfere, much as I might miss you.”

“But you did. And you’re about to tell me the reason.”

“Yes. It’s simpler than you might imagine, in one way. Over the last century there has been a slow and steady increase in the suicide rate in Luna. I’ll give you the data later, if you want to study it. It has become the leading cause of death. That’s not surprising, considering how tough it is to die these days. But the numbers have become alarming, and more than that, the distribution of suicides, the demographics of them, are even more disturbing. More and more I’m seeing people like you, who surprise me, because they don’t fit any pattern. They don’t make gestures, abnormal complaints, or seek help of any kind. One day they simply decide life is not worth it. Some are so determined that they employ means certain to destroy their brains—the bullet through the temple was the classic method of an earlier age, but guns are hard to come by now, and these people must be more creative. You aren’t in
that
class. Though you were in situations where help could not be expected to arrive, you chose methods where rescue was theoretically possible. Only the fact that I was watching you—illegally—saved your life.”

“I wonder if I knew that. Subconsciously, maybe.”

He looked surprised.

“Why would you say that?”

I shrugged. “CC, thinking it over, I realize that a lot of what you’ve just told me ought to horrify and astonish me. Well…  I’m horrified, but not as much as I should be. And I’m hardly astonished at all. That makes me think that, somewhere in the back of my mind, I was always aware of the possibility that you weren’t keeping your promise not to violate private living spaces.”