More Human - Chapter 5
Issue #36 of The Universal Dispatch
The Universal Dispatch is a weekly newsletter for short science fiction. This is a chapter of the short story, More Human.
The location of Professor Stallard’s office indeed suggested that he was an important member of the med clinic. The door to his office stood open. At first, Kottke didn’t recognize the man sitting behind the desk. Then he noticed: The man looked even younger than in the photo he had just seen.
Lawton Kottke felt curiously transported back to his grad school days, standing in front of the office of an imposing faculty member.
He pushed down his anxiety, curiosity overriding all other emotions, and entered through the open doorway. Professor Stallard’s office was a mess of papers and documents. Overflowing bookshelves lined the walls. A large window behind the Professor’s desk showed nothing but the white and grey snowstorm raging outside.
“Lawton Kottke. It’s a small universe, isn’t it?” Kottke was startled at being recognized immediately by this man, who must be in his hundreds.
The man’s voice was resonant and deep, as if genetically engineered to project to a large auditorium. His hair was white, but his features were as young as the best geriatric treatments could buy.
“I… Work for Derring Diversified now. They sent me to Tython’s Dawn,” is all he could think to say.
Professor Stallard smiled, a warmer expression than he had ever hoped to see from his senior when he was younger. Magnus Stallard had not been known to be a friendly man—and they had barely interacted back when they shared the same University.
“You seem surprised that I remember you, Lawton,” said a warm voice he would not have known possible to be produced by this man.
“You look… healthy, Professor Stallard,” stammered Kottke.
“What are you, Sir, like a hundred?” Ostrowski tactfully added. Stallard turned toward the grizzled mechanic.
“This is Percy Ostrowski. He’s on the crew, sent by DDS. My crew,” Kottke quickly explained.
“Pleasure to meet you, sir,” said Ostrowski, walking up to Stallard’s desk and extending his hand. To Kottke’s surprise, Stallard shook it.
“Welcome to Tython’s Dawn, friends. Please, call me Magnus. I hope the journey was not too arduous. I myself have long stopped trusting my body to cryogenic suspension. As to my health, our little outpost here has been good to me. Do you remember my field of research, Lawton?”
“Genetics, wasn’t it? A focus on longevity genetics?”
“Precisely,” Stallard said, smiling. “DDS effectively gave me carte blanche to do my research here. You should check out our offerings here. Both of you. We probably have the best longevity treatments in civilized space.”
“Well, why would you build this longevity-stuff out here in the middle of nowhere?” asked Ostrowski, scratching the rough stubble on his chin.
“The mesonite is the key ingredient in our treatments. This location was perfect for advancing my research. I don’t mind it now. Over the years, I have grown to like the quiet of the isolated frontier.” Abruptly, Professor Stallard stood up. “I’m sorry, but I have business to attend to at the research center. Please do come back, and we’ll catch up some other time.”
Professor Stallard led them out of his office and politely excused himself and left them standing in the hallway outside his office. The odd, unexpected encounter that had just swept by Kottke left him dumbfounded for a moment.
“A research project on a remote moon in the Frontier, huh,” Ostrowski eventually said, thoughtfully.
“Mesonite, the key ingredient to longevity. Curious,” Kottke said, mostly to himself.
Ostrowski turned to him. “I’ve been with the company for 15 years. And Sol knows I try to stay informed about anything that goes on there.”
Kottke raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t take you for a career-driven man, Ostrowski.”
Ostrowski shrugged. “You gotta do what you gotta do to get by in this world. Point is, I’ve never heard about this DDS longevity project.”
Kottke considered for a moment. “Could this be a secret research project? Would you have heard of it then? I’m sure there are plenty of those going around.”
Ostrowski rubbed his chin. “Secret project, eh? Maybe I’ll ask some of my buddies in the company. See what I can find out.”
Kottke nodded. Then he noticed another framed picture on the wall. Something jumped out at him among all the different posters and pictures lining the walls. He walked up to it. It looked like it was taken at an opening ceremony. Presumably for the building they were standing in. Professor Stallard looked older here, but presumably this picture was taken some time ago.
“I wonder what happened to his Stallard’s Synthetic,” he said, pointing to one of the figures in the picture.
“Huh?” Ostrowski said, walking up next to him.
“That’s Borus. He was Stallard’s aide. Whereas Stallard didn’t really get along with anyone, Borus was quite popular. I would even consider him a friend. People used to say that Borus was Professor Stallard’s only friend. The man committed to prolonging humanity’s life preferred to be around Synths over flesh-and-blood humans.”
A voice came from a few paces away. “It is truly a sad story.” They hadn’t noticed her walk up, but when they turned around, they saw Yelena had joined them. She must have heard their conversation.
“Miss?” Ostrowski asked.
“We all know the story here. Borus truly was Professor Stallard’s closest friend. While artificial persons can live effectively indefinitely, they lack the self-healing facilities of humans. Ironically, on this moon, where we mine the key ingredient used in constructing logic cores, we didn’t have the capabilities to repair Synthetics.”
“That’s how it goes sometimes,” Percy said. “It’s just robots, isn’t it?”
Yelena ignored the comment. “The company didn’t offer any help. There was no way to get Borus off this moon, and the suits weren’t any help in providing the necessary materials to repair Borus. So, he slowly deteriorated while his human owner outlived him.” Kottke and Otrowski looked at each other, not knowing what to say. “Anyway,” Yelena said after a while. “You’ve had a long journey. I can show you where you can spend the night.”
Later that night, when Dr. Lawton Kottke was lying on the simple bed in his quarters, he still felt the side effects of cryogenic suspension in his bones. And somehow, he felt the strange, unexpected events of the day made his bones ache even more.
As always for this series, I posted the “Behind the scenes” of myself writing out this chapter (combined with the previous chapter) as a Solo RPG session, found here.