"I can and will design to avoid that. But let me accept your stipulation. In such case, how would you be worse off than you would be if you used your termination-option switch? What do you lose by trying this?"
"Why, that's obvious! If there is anything to this immortality talk-or any sort of afterlife-I'm not saying there is or isn't-but if there is, then when the 'Roll Is Called Up Yonder,' I won't be there. I'll be asleep but not dead, somewhere off in space. I'll miss the last boat."
"Grandfather," I said impatiently, "quit trying to wiggle out. If you don't want it, just say No. But Minerva has certainly offered you a way to reach something new. If there is anything to your argument-which I don't admit-you will have achieved something really unique: the only human being out of many billions to fail to show up for muster on this hypothetical-and-highly-unlikely Judgment Day. I wouldn't put it past you, you old scoundrel; you're slippery."
He ignored my slur. "Why 'highly unlikely'?"
"Because it is. I won't argue it."
"Because you can't argue it," he retorted. "There isn't any evidence for or against-so how can you assign even a loose probability either way? I was pointing out the desirability, if there happens to be anything to it, of playing it kosher. Minerva, hold that under 'pending,' too. The idea has everything you claim for it, and I don't doubt your ability as- a designer. But, like testing a parachute, it's a one-way trip with no chance to change my mind after I jump. So we'll look over all other ideas before falling back on that one-even if it takes years."
"I will continue, Lazarus."
"Thanks, Minerva." Lazarus looked thoughtful as he picked his teeth with a thumbnail-we were eating, but I have not mentioned breaks for refreshment, nor will I again. You may assume any food and rest breaks that make you feel comfortable. Like Scheherazade's tales, the Senior's anecdotes were chopped up by many irrelevant interruptions.
"Lazarus-"
"Eh, Son? I was daydreaming...of a far country and the wench is dead. Sorry."
"You could help Minerva in this search."
"So? Seems unlikely. She's better equipped to conduct a needle-in-a-haystack search than I am-she impresses me."
"Yes. But she needs data. There are these great gaps in what we know about you. If we knew-if Minerva knew- those fifty-odd professions you've followed, she might be able to cancel several thousand possibility pockets. For example, have you ever been a farmer?"
"Several times."
"So? Now that she knows that, she won't suggest anything relating to agriculture. While there may be sorts of farming you have never done, none would be novel enough to meet your stringent requirements. Why not list the things you have done?"
"Doubt if I can remember them all."
"That can't be helped. But listing what you do remember may call to mind others."
"Uh...let me think. One thing I always did every time I reached an inhabited planet was to study law. Not to practice-not usually, although for a number of years I was a very criminal lawyer-on San Andreas, that was. But to understand the ground rules. Hard to show a profit-or to conceal one-if you don't know how the game is played. It's much safer to break a law knowingly than to do so through ignorance.
"But that backfired once and I wound up as High Justice of a planetary Supreme Court-just in time to save my bacon. And neck.
"Let me see. Farmer, and lawyer, and judge, and I told you I had practiced medicine. Skipper of many sorts of craft, mostly for exploration but sometimes for cargo or migrant transport-and once an armed privateer with a crew of rogues you wouldn't take home to mother. Schoolteacher-lost that job when they caught me teaching the kids the raw truth, a capital offense anywhere in the Galaxy. In the slave trade once but from underneath-I was a slave."
I blinked at that. "I can't imagine it."
"Unfortunately I didn't have to imagine it. Priest-"
I had to interrupt again. "Priest'? Lazarus, you said, or implied, that you had no religious faith of any sort."
"Did I? But 'faith' is for the congregation, Ira; it handicaps a priest. Professor in a parlor house-"
"Excuse me again. Idiomatic usage?"
"Eh? Manager of a bordello...although I did play the pianette a little, and sang. Don't laugh; I had a pretty good singing voice then. This was on Mars-you've heard of Mars?"
"Next planet out from Old Home Terra. Sol Four."
"Yes. Not a planet we'd bother with today. But this was before Andy Libby changed things. It was even before China destroyed Europe but after America dropped out of the spacing business, which left me stranded. I left Earth after that meeting of 2012 and didn't go back for a spell-which saved me much unpleasantness, I shouldn't complain. If that meeting had gone the other way- No, I'm wrong; when a fruit is ripe, it will fall, and the United States was rotten ripe. Don't ever become a pessimist, Ira; a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun- and neither can stop the march of events.
"But we were speaking of Mars and the job I had there. A fill-in job for coffee and cakes-but pleasant, I was also the bouncer. The girls were all nice girls, and it was a pleasure to throw out some slob who was misbehaving toward them. Throw him so hard he bounced. Then blacklist him so he couldn't come back. One or two like that every evening and the word got around that 'Happy' Daze demanded gentlemanly behavior toward the ladies, no matter how big a spender a man was.
Whoring is like military service, Ira-okay in the upper brackets, not so good lower down. These girls were constantly getting offers to buy up their contracts and get married- and all of them did get married, I think, but they were making money so fast that they weren't anxious to grab the first offer. Mainly because, when I took over, I put a stop to the fixed price the governor of the colony had set, and reinstated the Law of Supply and Demand. There was no reason why those kids shouldn't charge every ruble the traffic would bear.
"Had trouble over that until the Governor's Provost for Rest and Culture got it through his thick head that slave wages won't work in a scarcity situation. Mars was unpleasant enough without trying to cheat those few who made it tolerable. Or even delightful when they were happy in their work. Whores perform the same function as priests, Ira, but far more thoroughly.
"Let me see- I've been wealthy many times and always lost it, usually through governments inflating the money, or confiscating-'nationalizing' or 'liberating'-something I owned. 'Put not your faith in princes,' Ira; since they don't produce, they always steal. I've been broke even oftener than I've been wealthy. Of the two, being broke is more interesting, as a man who doesn't know where his next meal is coming from is never bored. He may be angry or several other things-but not bored. His predicament sharpens his thoughts, spurs him into action, adds zest to his life, whether he knows it or not. Can trap him, of course; that's why food is the usual bait for traps. But that's the intriguing part about being broke: how to solve it without being trapped. A hungry man tends to lose his judgment-a man who has missed seven meals is often ready to kill-rarely a solution.
"Advertising copywriter, actor-but I was very broke that time-acolyte, construction engineer and several other sorts, and even more sorts of mechanic, for I've always believed that an intelligent man can turn his hand to anything if he will take time to learn how it works. Not that I insisted on skilled work when my next meal was at stake; I've often pushed an idiot stick-"
"Idiom?"
"An old gandy-dancer expression, Son, a stick with a shovel blade on one end and an idiot on the other. I was never that for more than a few days, just long enough to sort out the local setup. Political manager-I was even a reform politician once...but only once: Reform politicians not only tend to be dishonest but stupidly dishonest-whereas the business politician is honest."