I am the giver and taker of lives, I tell myself as Sophie bounces into the chamber on the low gravity.
“The big day tomorrow, Newton,” she says, stripping down to her bra and panties, revealing her perfect hourglass.
You’ve no idea.
Smiling, I usher her into the sleek, black booth but see, now, that she’s shaking.
“Just relax,” I say. “There’s nothing to fear.” I’ve died twice and been resurrected both times. I lock her in.
Who am I kidding? Every departure could be your last.
I should know: I designed the damn thing!
At the control desk, I initiate the pre-scan and check the results. Pleased to see no body composition anomalies, I walk back to the booth and open the hatch.
Sophie flicks her long, blonde hair away from her eyes. “All good?”
“Perfect.”
Her smile is hypnotic.
For a single, middle-aged man such as myself, she’s everything that could possibly be hoped for in a woman — except for the niggling fact of her marriage!
As soon as she’s left the chamber, Tony barges past, already down to his undies. The way he acknowledges me with a nod and then does leg raises, rather than talk to me, makes me truly wonder what Sophie sees in him. I clear my throat to get his attention, and when he looks, at last, I usher him into the ToM booth.
“Looking forward to home?” I ask.
“Hell, yeah!” he barks in my face.
I lock him in and initiate the pre-scan. Like all humans, 99% of Tony is made up of six elements — oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium and phosphorus — but, boy, he’s missing some pretty basic other ingredients, like manners!
I’ll never forget Sophie’s astrobiologist quip that the most peculiar extra-terrestrial she’s discovered here is Tony.
I unlock the booth and gesture him out. “All good. Don’t forget to fast, and I’ll see you again tomorrow.”
“Can’t wait to get off this rock,” is his way of bidding me adieu.
Miners! There are people who’d die to be on Titan.
Ha! Everybody dies to be on Titan.
◊ ◊ ◊
In my quarters, I gaze through the porthole at the Sun, a lone star in the hazy, beige sky, well aware that the smog denies surface dwellers the best view in the solar system: that of Saturn and its ring. It’s a complete tease to know that it’s out there, so close, but just out of reach…
Tomorrow, Sophie will leave with Tony, contracts expired, never to return. I’ll scan the molecular composition of their bodies and beam their body plans across the solar system at close to the speed of light to Earth, where their replicas will be instantly constructed.
The machine is a work of genius. No one would dispute that. Everyone is enamoured with arrival, of course, but it’s departure that triggers all the fuss. While I recreate a person at point B, I terminate a person at point A. …
Read the full article which is published on Daily Philosophy (external link)
