United States or Saint Barthélemy ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
There is enough strangeness in feeling with absolute certainty that a limb exists where actually there is nothing, but the strangeness is compounded when you look down and discover that not only is the leg gone but that another, mechanical one has taken its place. Dr. Erics, who had performed the operation, said this difficulty would ultimately prove a blessing but I often had my doubts.
The rest of my body stood up well to this assault but every few seconds I had the eerie sensation that I was back in my old body, a ghostly superimposition on the living protoplast, as the spinal chord projected its agony outward. Finally the pain subsided, succeeded by a blank numbness. I was carried on gravito-cushions to Erics' office. "It had to be," he sighed.
But now I was more second matter than any man in history. "It's the old question of Achilles' Ship," Dr. Erics told me. "Never heard of it," I said. "It's a parable, Treb, about concretised forms of a continuum in its discrete aspects." "I see the theoretical question but what has Achilles' Ship to do with it?" He furrowed his protoplast brow that looked as youthful as it had a century ago.
When he came to Athens he turned the problem over to the wise men of that city, refusing ever to think about it again." My mind was now in turmoil. "What," I demanded, "what did they decide?" Erics frowned. "Nothing. They could not answer the question. Every available answer was equally right and proved every other right answer wrong. As you know, philosophy does not progress in its essentials.
The truth could not be avoided: my mind could no longer grasp truth. I went, in grudging defeat, to Erics. "You have to win," I said and described my experiences. "Some things are inevitable," he nodded solemnly, "and some are not. This may solve all your problems." "Not all," I hoped aloud. Marla went with me to hospital. She realized the danger I was in but put the best possible face on it.
Then Erics' head, growing as he inspected my face more closely, covered everything else up. "When are you going to begin?" I demanded. "We have finished," he answered in awe that verged upon reverence. "You are the new Adam!" There was a mounting burst of applause as the viewers learned what I had said.
Then the mast collapsed and a new one was put in. After that the ship was in such good shape that it could outrace most of those just off the ways." I had an uneasy feeling about where this parable was leading us but my mind shied away from the essential point and Erics went relentlessly on.
"How could it?" "Suppose, Treb, just suppose you do come out of it all right. You'd be the first man to be completely of second matter!" "Erics, it can't work. Forget it." "I won't forget it. You said we're not immortal but, Treb, your survival would be another step in that direction. The soul's immortality has to be taken on faith now if it's taken at all.
In such a society crime in fact was hardly recognizable except in the form of an injury inflicted upon some person or persons. An offence against the State there could not be, simply because there was no State to be offended. Everything, from murder down to the smallest and most accidental injury, was compensated for by "erics" or fines.
The others had suffered such minor injuries that they were repaired before our craft landed on Nirva. I, though, unconscious and feverish, was in serious condition from skin abrasions and a comminuted cranium. Dr. Erics made the only possible prognosis. My skull had to be removed and a completely new protoskin had to be supplied also.
Word Of The Day