Read L'Engle, Madeleine - A Ring of Endless Light for Free Online Page B

cook steaks over a charcoal fire on a grill that belonged on a patio rather than in a state campground. And now she was dead. More death. And Zachary didn't look or seem that different. Would the world close around the space that had been Commander Rodney as it ap- 43 peared to have closed around Mrs. Gray, leaving no mark? Then I heard Zachary saying, "Do you know anything about the science of cryonics?" He reached for the pitcher to pour himself some more iced tea, but there wasn't much left. "I hadn't exactly thought of it as a science." There was a chilly edge to my father's voice. Zachary seemed to be having his usual effect on my family. Last summer, when he'd more or less followed us from campground to campground, I'd been flattered and fascinated. I was flattered that Zachary found me worth pursuing across the country, and fascinated by his sophistication. Even now, after a year in New York, I still felt gauche and nai've. "Oh, come, sir," Zachary was saying to my father. "Quite a few people in the A.M.A. are taking it seriously." "What's cryonics?" Rob asked. Whatever it was, I could see that Daddy didn't think much of it. Zachary was explaining, "We belong to a group in California called the Immortalists. We believe that it isn't necessary for people to die as early as they do, and when we understand more about controlling DNA and RNA it will be possible for people to live for several hundred years without aging--and that time is not so far in the future as you might think." We were all silent, listening to him. Mother glanced at Daddy, and then took the silver pitcher and headed for the kitchen for more iced tea. Zachary went on, "Cryonics is the science of freezing a body immediately after death, deep-freezing, so that later on-in five years, or five hundred-when scientists know more about the immortality factor, it will be possible for 44 these people of the future to revive the deep-frozen bodies, to resurrect them." Grandfather spoke with a small smile, "I think I prefer another kind of resurrection." Zachary's lips moved in a scornful smile. "Of course, the problem at the moment is cost. Not many people can afford it. We feel lucky that we can." "You did-you did that to your mother?" Rob sounded horrified. I was, too, come to that. I'd known, vaguely, that this kind of thing was being done in California, but not by or to anybody I knew. I looked at Grandfather. He gave me his special grandfather-granddaughter smile. "Resurrection has always been costly, though not in terms of money. It took only thirty pieces of silver." "Oh, that," Zachary said, courteously enough. "We think this is more realistic, sir. While only the rich can afford it now, ultimately it should be available to everybody." Into my mind's eye flashed an image of the afternoon before, when we were standing by a dark hole in the ground, waiting for Commander Rodney's body to be lowered into it. Somehow that struck me as being more realistic than being deep-frozen. Being deep-frozen went along with plastic grass and plastic earth and trying to pretend that death hadn't really happened. "Of course," Zachary said, "nowadays a lot of people get cremated, basically because of lack of space in cemeteries." Rob was looking at him in fascinated horror. "You mean your scientists couldn't do anything with ashes?" He was sitting next to Grandfather and he reached out to hold his hand. Now Rob was bathed in Grandfather's luminous smile. 45 "I'm not depending on superscientists, Rob. When one tries to avoid death, it's impossible to affirm life." I thought of Mrs. Gray deep-frozen somewhere in California, and Commander Rodney buried on the Island, covered with good Island soil. And Grandfather-perhaps he and Mother and Daddy had discussed what was going to happen to him, to his body, when he died. But they hadn't talked about it around us. Maybe it wasn't time. Not yet. Please. Not for a while yet. Rob was asking Grandfather anxiously, "It doesn't really