“I hate to accuse scientists and doctors of playing God because I wouldn’t even be here without them.” He sighed. “When I started out we had the mantra of old versus bold pilots drilled into us. We adhered to the safety rules or we were out.”
© A Sunderland 2011
He continued. “I and my team drill safety into everyone who steps through our doors. We show them the consequences of lapses of concentration, poor maintenance, stupidity, and recklessness.” He shook his head. “God knows how Don ever got through.”
Cindy nodded. “I’ve patched him up quite a few times.”
Stirling continued. “We show mangled bodies to our new cadets. We take them to mortuaries, and show videos of limbless and wheelchair bound victims. All to impress on them the need for safety. If they can’t stomach the sight of smashed bodies and charred flesh then they’re out. If they think that they can put their own or their colleagues lives at risk, they’re out.”
“What’s your point, David?”
“You are showing them that if they smash up their ship then they, as a person, can get rebuilt, probably even better than before. They don’t just get nine lives. They get as many as they want.”
Cindy shook her head. “We can’t unlearn this, and as a doctor I can’t deny patients the treatment they need, based on some arbitrary code of conduct.”
“Tough and unpalatable decisions are going to have to be made. People can’t expect to be exempt from the consequences of their actions.” Stirling slammed his right fist onto his chair arm. “We can’t afford people to take chances with expensive machinery. We can’t afford a new ship every time somebody acts stupid, and you can’t afford to rebuild all the fools who will be carried into your operating theaters. You can’t take away death as a consequence of extreme stupidity or recklessness.”
“Surely you don’t want to deny people like Li the chance to live the life they deserve.” Cindy said. “If you want to halt medical knowledge then why not stop scientific advancement. Why don’t we all just sit here on this rock hurtling through space, never knowing what is out there? Never exploring, never discovering, never risking our lives. Why don’t we go back to the Flat Earth theory?”
Stirling looked grimly at Cindy and said, “we were meant to discover, to seek knowledge, to be on an endless thirsty quest for all that we can learn. But we’re not meant to live forever. We grow old, we wear out, our bodies eventually succumb to the ravishes of time, and we die. We pass on our knowledge to the next generations, and if we’re lucky we live on in their memories, or in tributes to our works and discoveries.”
He shook his head. “A world in which people refuse to admit it’s their time will be a very bad world. I don’t want to see it and I certainly don’t want to be part of it. Please, when my time comes let me go in peace, in dignity, and in acceptance.” Tears welled in his eyes. “Some of us have witnessed things that we must take to the grave with us, things that are too disturbing to trouble others with.”
Stirling looked deeply troubled. In a hoarse faltering voice, he said, “Doctor, please don’t try to deny me the right to finally be free of this burden.”
Chapter 11
The Gift
[Day 93]
Stirling had been invited to join Cindy and Janine for tea at the Lewis house, a traditional ranch, of wood construction, five miles east of Monterey, California. All three were seated in the secluded rear garden, drinking coffee.
After a few minutes of informal pleasant chit-chat Stirling cleared his throat nervously.
Cindy looked anxiously at him as he took another drink from his cup. She waited for him to finish, but felt nervous about what he had to say. She leaned forward as he lowered his cup. She gave him a stern look as he went to raise it again.