Robert Silverberg - To Live Again

The lamasery rose steeply from the top of the bluff on the Marin County side of the Golden Gate. Feeling a faint cramp in his left calf, John Roditis got out of the car near the toll plaza and, stretching and kicking, looked across the water at the gleaming yellow building, windowless, sleek, ineffably holy as a fountainhead of good karma. It was an extraordinarily warm day. San Francisco had been gripped by an unaccustomed heat wave throughout the four days of Roditis visit. Hot weather in the psychological sense did not trouble Roditis; he thrived on it, in fact. But when heat came to him not as a function of metaphor but as a blazing golden eye staring from above, he longed to switch on the air conditioner.

There was no way for him to change the outdoor environment to that degree. At least, not yet. Given enough minds in one skull, though, who was to say what limits a man might have?

Roditis gestured at the lamasery. I hope its cooler in there, eh?

It will be, Charles Noyes said. The guru is cool. Roditis scowled at his associates pun. Still infested with the antique slang?

Not me. Its Kravchenko. As he spoke the name of the persona who shared his body, Noyes grin turned to a grimace, and he clung to the polished railing just before him. His long body sagged. His elbows trembled and beat against his ribs. Damn him! Damn him! Noyes grunted.

Have him erased, Roditis suggested.

You know I cant!

When an unruly persona threatens the integrity of the host, he ought to be expelled, said Roditis crisply. If Kozak made trouble for me Id throw him out in a minute, and he knows it. Or Walsh. Either of them. I cant afford to have a troublemaker in my head. Can you?

Stop it, John.

Im just talking common sense.

Kravchenko doesnt like it. Hes giving me a hard time. Noyes arm came up from the railing in a fitful jerk. Hes fighting me. Hes trying to speak.

You wont be satisfied, said Roditis, until he goes dybbuk on you. Throws you out of your own body.

Id kill him and me both first! Roditis scowled. Youre becoming an unstable bastard, you realize it? If I werent so fond of you Id let you go. Come on: into the car. Mustnt keep the cool guru waiting, or hell get hot under the toga. Or whatever he wears.

Roditis, chuckling, opened the car door and pulled Noyes away from the railing. There was momentary confusion as Noyes struggled to regain full control of his limbs. Then Roditis thrust his companion into the car, got in beside him, and slammed the door.

Finish the route as programed, Roditis said to the car. The generator thrummed and the car backed out of the plaza area, swung around, and headed for the tollbooths. The actuarial sign over the row of booths announced the days vehicle toll: 83. As the car passed through a booth, a brief data interchange took place between the bridge computer and the car, and Roditis central bank account was automatically billed for that amount. Onward sped the car over the elderly bridge and toward the yellow shaft of the lamasery just beyond.

Within the cool depths of the car, Roditis flecked perspiration from his corrugated brow and regarded the other man uneasily.

He was growing more and more worried about Noyes, who perhaps was becoming a risky liability. It would be a pity to have to let Noyes go, after a relationship that had lasted so long and worked so well.

They had met in college, nineteen years before. Their roles had been reversed then: Noyes was the campus leader, tall and dashing, appropriately Anglo-Saxon, with the fair hair and blue eyes of the highest caste, and seven generations of respectable money behind him, while Roditis, the immigrant shoemakers son who looked the part, was short, thick-bodied, dark, a scholarship student, a nobody.

But Noyes had a gift for dissipating his many assets, Roditis a gift for capitalizing on what little he had. It was an attraction of opposites, instant, permanent. Now Roditis controlled an empire, and Noyes was a cog in that vast wheel. Poor Noyes. He hadnt been able to handle his own wealth, couldnt deal with a fine wife, was even making a mess of his persona transplant. Roditis hated to patronize anyone, but he couldnt help a certain feeling of smugness as he contemplated his own position vis--vis Noyes. Sad. Sad.

The car purred to a halt in the gravelly parking oval adjoining the lamasery. The men got out. It seemed to be at least ten degrees hotter on this side of the bridge. Reflected heat from the lamaserys polished sides, Roditis wondered? He looked up, and felt Anton Kozak within him responding affirmatively to the chaste elegance of the architecture. Roditis had become infinitely more aware of esthetic matters since taking on Kozaks persona. It had seemed odd to some that a businessman like Roditis would choose a sonic sculptor for his second transplant, but Roditis knew what he was going toward. He was assembling a portfolio of personae as another man might assemble a portfolio of common stocks for diversity, and for ultimate high profit.

Feeling better? Roditis asked. Much, said Noyes.

Kravchenko is pushed way down?

I think so. Hes had his exercise for the day.

If theres more trouble while were here, ask the guru to help you. Hell run a few simple exorcisms, Im sure.

Looking pale, Noyes said, It wont be necessary, John, and they approached the building.

Sensors scanned them. They were expected; the tall Gothic doorway peeled open, admitting them. Within, all was dark, cool, reflective. Roditis caught glimpses of saffron-robed monks scuttling to and fro in the rear arcades. A great deal of money had gone into the building of this lamasery; some of the best families had contributed to the fund. They said that the late Paul Kaufmann had donated over a million dollars fissionable. it was funny to imagine a rich Jew contributing that much money to a Buddhist monasterys construction fund; but, Roditis reminded himself, Kaufmann had not been a terribly orthodox Jew, any more than these monks were terribly orthodox Buddhists. And what had a million dollars more or less mattered to Paul Kaufmann? The crafty old banker had had his motives. Roditis saw a kindred spirit in Kaufmann. He himself had reached wealth too late to aid in this places construction fund, but now he was here to make amends for that and for what he thought were much the same motives.

Two shaven-headed monks emerged from inner rooms. They made appropriate pseudo-Buddhist gestures, tracing mandalas in the air, touching cardinal points of their bodies, murmuring gentle welcoming mantras. Roditis, unsmiling, flicked a glance at Noyes. The tall man seemed as awed as though he stood at the threshold of Gods throneroom. Once upon a time, Roditis would have envied Noyes his ability to don such a goddam sincere expression of respect, as contrasted to Roditis own look of impassive, poker-faced piety. But now Roditis was not at all sure whether Noyes was faking anything. In these latter troubled years, old Chuck might well have turned into a believer. Stranger things had happened.

The guru will be with you shortly, said one of the monks. Will you remove your worldly coverings and join us in prayer?

He indicated a room where they might change. Within, Roditis stripped away his sweat-stained clothing and gratefully shucked his shoes. His body, at thirty-seven, was tight-muscled and solid, a compact bullet of flesh still traveling unswervingly on its designed trajectory. Noyes, who was no older, still gave the illusion of lanky grace, but it was only an illusion. Beneath his clothes the tall man was thickening at the paunch, going flabby at thigh and rump. Such weakness of the flesh struck Roditis as a symptom of the decay of the will. He judged men harshly in this respect.