Staring at the Sun (24 page)

To his surprise, after a couple of silent minutes, input was overridden by output. Letters unrolled across the screen.

WHY DON’T YOU TELL ME ALL ABOUT IT?

Gregory nearly left at that point. He had obviously expected TAT to have a psycho-function; but nothing as crass as this. What a disappointment. He wondered if he’d been assigned some piece of antique equipment—a fin-de-siècle psychotherapy computer, for instance. In which case he might as well sit down with an old-fashioned human being.

But there were other possibilities. That first question might have a specific function. It could be intended as a relaxing joke (the idea that computers were unable to generate humour had long since been disproved) or as an irritant designed to make him blurt out whatever was in the front, or preferably the back, of his mind. Yet again, it might be a randomly selected opening gambit. That chess computer he’d had back in the late seventies: you could open a king’s pawn and receive one of several possible replies. Gregory decided it was silly to get cross with TAT and answered the question (now flashing a reminder sign) as directly as he had planned.

“I am afraid of death.”

EXPAND
.

Well, at least it hadn’t replied “Aren’t we all?” and given a Viennese chuckle.

“Expand in what direction?” If he was going to be precise, he was going to insist on TAT’s being precise as well.

WHEN? HOW OFTEN? SINCE WHEN? DESCRIBE FEAR
.

Gregory typed in his answers carefully, and spaced them neatly, even though he knew this was irrelevant to the machine’s understanding.

1. In the late afternoon, the early evening, and when I am in bed; when I am driving up a hill; at the end of physical exercise; when I listen to certain pieces of jazz; in the middle of sex; when I look at the stars; when I think of my childhood; when I look at a happy pill in the middle of someone
else’s palm; when I think of the dead; when I think of the living.

2. Every day of my life.

3. Ten years, perhaps, in the way described. Before that, as an adolescent, with the same frequency and terror, but with less elaboration.

4. It is a combination of physical fear, self-pity, anger and disappointment.

IS IT DEATH YOU FEAR OR OBLIVION?

“Both.”

WHICH MORE?

“I do not distinguish them.”

BUT EVERYONE DIES. EVERYONE IN THE PAST, AND EVERYONE IN THE FUTURE
.

“I find that no consolation.”

DESCRIBE YOUR PHYSICAL TERROR
.

“It’s not the fear of pain, it’s the fear of the inevitability of non-pain. It’s the sense of having a heat-seeking missile locked in on your path, and that however fast you run it will always overtake you. It’s …” But his input was subject to an Interrupt.

THE HARE NEVER OVERTAKES THE TORTOISE IN THEORY
.

What? Gregory could scarcely believe this. The cheek. Quickly, he replied,

“1. Zeno is dead, as you may or may not have noticed. 2. Don’t make fucking jokes about it.”

SORRY
.

Gregory was then quizzed with courtesy and even—if you could say this about a machine—with sensitivity about his childhood, his parents, his career, his experience of people dying, the funerals he had been to, his future expectations. Some of this information, he guessed, was to cross-check his record. During these exchanges, he began to get the feel of talking to TAT; it seemed to understand shortcuts in expression and to follow modulations of tone without difficulty. The session was drawing to a close.

IS IT DEATH YOU COMPLAIN. ABOUT OR LIFE?

“That’s not a real question. Both, of course; because both are one.”

AND WHAT DO YOU WANT DONE ABOUT IT?

“I don’t know. Is the fear of death an ineradicable human instinct?”

NOT ANYMORE. BY NO MEANS. IMAGINE A DENTAL NERVE BEING REMOVED
.

“I haven’t come for the happy pills. That’s not what I mean.”

OF COURSE NOT. THAT WOULD BE INSULTING. THERE ARE MORE SERIOUS METHODS. DO YOU KNOW ABOUT NDE?

“No.”

PLEASE REQUEST A 16B ON THE WAY OUT. BUT DON’T FORGET TO ASK YOURSELF IF YOU REALLY DO WANT NOT TO FEAR DEATH. I HAVE ENJOYED OUR LITTLE CHAT. KINDLY STORE BEFORE DEPARTURE. ARRIVEDERCI
.

Christ, this machine could be irritating.
Arrivederci?
Had it misread his surname or something? Unless it was just a random sign-off. In which case perhaps he should repay it in kind, with a random greeting in Eskimo or Maori or something. Rub his nose from side to side on the screen: that might shake the brute up.

At the desk the receptionist who had given him the will form handed him a 16b as if she knew he was going to ask for one. She shouldn’t have done that, he thought. Nor should she have smiled and said, “See you again soon, I expect.” Maybe he’d go and kill himself just to confound her expectations. Push out to sea in an open boat, jump off a church tower flapping his wings, or whatever the modern equivalent might be. Something with an aeroplane and no parachute, he suspected.

Back at home, he felt the pamphlet warm and shameful in his pocket, like a piece of specially targeted pornography. He saved it until Jean had gone to bed, squirted himself a sodawhisk from the dispenser, and settled down. NDEs, it transpired, were Near Death Experiences, the lulling dreams—or spiritual visions—enjoyed by coma victims before they swayed back from extinction. Failed suicides,
car-crash survivors, patients who suffered routine mishaps on the operating table—all reported that a form of consciousness, rarefied but tenacious, had been maintained. That inert body in the hospital bed was no more than a blacked-out house; inside, coherent life continued.

Researchers began collating testimony in the seventies and soon established that the key stages of a Near Death Experience could be charted like the Stations of the Cross. The NDE would typically begin with a release from pain and a flooding sense of calm. This was followed by weightlessness, heightened perception and a detachment from the physical body. Quietly, and without anguish, the self would slip away from its straitjacket of flesh; it would float upwards, rest against the ceiling and peer down with a distant curiosity at the comatose, discarded husk below. After a while the freed self would embark on a symbolic journey, through the Dark Tunnel and towards the Country of Light. This passage was a period of joy and optimism, feelings which would continue until the traveller arrived at the Border—a river it was forbidden to cross, a door that would not open. Here the hopeful voyager realized with dismay that the Country of Light was inaccessible—on this visit, at least—and that a return to the abandoned body was inevitable. This enforced reentry into the world of flesh and pain and time would always be marked by a seeping disappointment.

There was, though, a surprise benefit: patients emerged from their NDE with no trace of fear about their own subsequent death. However their vision of the Country of Light might be interpreted (to some it confirmed the truth of religion; to others, just mankind’s tireless capacity for wishful thinking), its practical effect was to expunge mortal terror. Coma, that facsimile of death, was the key factor; control groups—those who had merely endured agonies of pain, kidnap victims sentenced to death and unexpectedly released—offered much more haphazard findings. Researchers had followed up a number of NDE survivors and interviewed them on their deathbeds; here the figures slipped a little, but the expungement-of-fear rate remained at over 90 percent.

From this discovery emerged in the mid-nineties a small pioneer programme designed to cure deep neurosis by temporarily inducing coma. It was, of course, a risky procedure, both socially and medically; indeed, a couple of small miscalculations had the effect of stalling the project for almost a decade. But once the final wrinkle—that of actually killing the patient by mistake—had been eliminated, the programme received central funding. The delicacy and expense of the surgery involved (plus the fear of democratic abuse) meant that information about induced NDEs was restricted. However, pamphlet 16b (which had to be signed for and returned) could promise that, where the patient was deemed suitable for treatment, the surgical technique was 99.9 percent safe, and the long-term cure rate consistently above 90 percent.

IMAGINE A DENTAL NERVE BEING REMOVED …
As simple as that, Gregory thought. Drill through the pulp and burn out the nerve. No more sleepless nights.

He spent the next two days in his room. Sometimes, as he sat listening to jazz a clarinet would detach itself, rise and wail briefly above an inert body of sound; at which Gregory would be reminded—briefly, as if from an angle—of the question he had been set. But his answer didn’t really come from a process of thought. It was too easy for that, too instinctive. It was like flicking a switch, or kicking a rudder, or pressing a button.

When he returned to the blue-green cubicle the screen was in a cheery mood, one early riser greeting another with the morning mist still on the ground and the birds excitedly discussing the light.

HI THERE. NICE TO SEE YOU. DIDN’T EXPECT YOU BACK SO SOON
.

“Hullo.”

WELL, AND DID WE READ OUR 16B?

“Yes.”

AND WOULD WE LIKE OUR FEAR OF DEATH CLINICALLY REMOVED?

“No.”

OH!
That was what it said. The machine actually said:
OH!
There was a pause: perhaps Gregory was meant to feel guilty about the rebuff he had administered. Then:
MIND TELLING US WHY?

“No.”

OH!

For once, Gregory felt he was the boss. “What we would like removed,” he typed slowly, as if he could be patronizing with his fingertips, “is not the fear of death, but death itself.”

THE IMPOSSIBLE ALWAYS TAKES A LITTLE LONGER
.

The machine had recovered its jauntiness; unless tone was also a random factor. Gregory got up and wandered down the corridor for some coffee. When he returned, the screen was covered in brisk encouragements,
COME ON THEN
and
YOUR GO SQUIRE
and
ENTER WHILE RATES LAST
and
YOU HAVE NOW BEEN SITTING THERE FOR TWO AND A HALF MINUTES
. Gregory wiped them all away with a brisk stab at Input and moved the blinking cursor into the enquiry field. He entered Religion.

WHICH RELIGION?

“Religion generally.”

PROCEED
.

Gregory wasn’t sure how to phrase it. But presumably TAT could feed off GPC’s information bank.

“What is the current state of religious belief?”

CENSUS OF 2016: ANGLOPOPE CHURCH 23%, MUSLOHIND 8% …

Interrupt. That wasn’t what he was after.

“How strong is the belief of those who believe?”

VARIES FROM WEAK TO FERVENT. SUGGEST PAMPHLET 34C
.

He didn’t think he’d ask for that one. Well, since TAT was in a back-slapping mood this morning, why not be chummy and personal back?

“Do you believe in God?”

NOT REAL QUESTION
.

He might have known.

“Why is it not a real question?”

NOT REAL QUESTION EITHER. ANYWAY, LET’S TALK ABOUT YOU. DO YOU BELIEVE?

Gregory smiled. “Well, I’m thinking about it.”

WHAT MAIN OBJECTIONS?
came the quick reply.

“The main objections are (1) Improbability. (2) Lack of evidence. (3) The problem of evil. (4) Infant mortality. (5) The priesthood. (6) Religious wars. (7) The Inquisition.”

Gregory felt he was running out of steam. There must be some big ones he’d missed out. What about Christ being just one of a hundred similar prophets and there being enough pieces of the True Cross around to lay railway sleepers from London to Edinburgh?

IMPORTANT DISTINGUISH RELIGIOUS BELIEF FROM RELIGIOUS PRACTICE. HUMANS FALLIBLE, EVEN PRIESTS. NUMBER OF PEOPLE KILLED BY INQUISITION INCIDENTALLY GREATLY EXAGGERATED. INFANT MORTALITY NOW REDUCED TO 0.002 IN UKAY. PROBLEM OF EVIL AS YOU PUT IT GREATLY REDUCED BY HAPPY PILLS AND CRIMEFREE ZONES AND ANYWAY CONTINGENT ON FREE WILL SQUIRE. IMPROBABILITY AND EVIDENCE YOUR BEST BETS
.

“But is it true? What do you think?”

ONE AT A TIME IF YOU PLEASE, CHARLIE
.

“Is it true?”

SUCCESSIVE GOVERNMENTS HAVE APPROVED A STRICTLY NONINTERVENTIONIST POLICY
.

“Does that mean they think it’s a good thing?”

LET’S SAY NOT A BAD THING
.

Since the machine was sounding unbuttoned (a drink in its hand, one slipper dangling from its big toe), Gregory slipped in his unreal question again.

“Strictly between ourselves, what do you think about it, to be honest?”

SIX OF ONE AND HALF A DOZEN OF THE OTHER, GUV
.

“Does it help people?”

ON THE WHOLE MAYBE
.

But that hadn’t been what Gregory intended to ask; he’d just been boxed into it. Two things were clear: first, TAT had been programmed with an eye to social policy; what was true merged into what it was deemed useful—or at least not harmful—to believe. Second, the machine wasn’t merely a humming repository of answers. Part of its psychotherapy function was to cajole you into
asking your questions more accurately. Quite right, thought Gregory: a careful question is, after all, a sort of answer.

So what were the questions? Is death absolute? Is religion true? Yes, No; No, Yes—which do you prefer? Unless, Gregory thought, unless … what if the answer to both were Yes? He’d imagined an eternal life not dependent on God’s existence; what if the reverse were the case? Could religion be true and yet death still be absolute? That would be a sucker punch. He put this suggestion to TAT, which quickly answered,
NO HYPOTHETICALS
.

Gregory wasn’t surprised by the response; yet he continued to find the idea of hypotheticals enticing. The assumption had always been that either death was final or it was the prelude to the gold leaf and velvet cushions of life everlasting. There must be room, though, for something between these two propositions. There might be life everlasting, but only at the level, say, of a coma victim: perhaps the blissful vision of an NDE was all too literal, and being dead felt like being unconscious. Or again, there might be a life everlasting so designed that you soon began to long for unattainable death: in other words, the reverse of that daily human condition in which you feared death and longed for unattainable life everlasting.