Even young Ed Dukas, though dedicated in his heart to New and Coming Things, sometimes lost sight of these deeper concerns because of his lighter interests. Without much help from art, Barbara Day turned out to be beautiful. She had a pair of suitors automatically. Ed could have had his stocky frame lengthened. Les Payten could have had his big ears trimmed. But young men often frown on the vanity of tampering with one's appearance. Sometimes there is even a certain pride in minor ugliness.
They all had their dates, their dancing, their canoe rides—traditional pleasures, inherited from generations past. And they had the age-old problems of youth approaching adulthood. But now, for them and for their increasingly complex civilization, there was a new problem—vitaplasm, which could be grown like flesh, though faster, impressed with a shape, personality and memories. It was said that 30 per cent of those who died in the explosion of the Moon lab were brought back in this firmer, cheaper medium. But its use did not stop here. For one thing, there were certain adventurous persons, alive and healthy, who changed the character of their bodies willfully.
One fact some might forget: there were other dead from years before, but remembered and still loved—parents, grandparents. Besides, there were historical characters—Washington, Lincoln, Edison, Cleopatra.
Possibly Joe Doakes could awaken from extinction, puzzled, wondering, frightened, but finding himself at least superficially the same, eating much the same food, enjoying much the same things. Then something super in his body would dawn on him, scaring him more or making him exultant. But it all seemed good at first glance, so a joyful world forgot its times of suspicion, even against the warnings of specialists, and released the new processes to almost any operator who could construct the needed equipment.
The solar system was big; the universe, optimistically promised, seemed endless. There was plenty of room. And the task of bringing back just those who had perished with the Moon was enormous and slow. So in cellars and out-of-the-way places countless biological technicians tried their skill. They could not have made the grade at all if they were stupid, and their results, generally, were good.
The various Julius Caesars and Michelangelos really came into being as novelties, side-show pieces. All were reasonable likenesses, physically. From existing minds such traits and skills as each was supposed to possess could be copied more or less accurately. But none of the pseudo-great amounted to very much. They enjoyed a brief popularity; then, assuming the costumes and customs of a changed world, they sank into nonentity among the populace. Like most of those of the new flesh, they kept this secret as if by intuitive prudence. The many people restored in normal protoplasm were less reticent.
That there were androids around him, known, suspected and unrecognized as such, was a thrilling idea to Ed Dukas. It was part of the onward march to greater wonders—or so it seemed to him most of the time. Eager to understand how they thought and felt, he sought them out cautiously, not wishing to offend. Usually his efforts were met with coolness and evasion—which perhaps gave them away.
But then Ed met a very special memory man. He wasn't the copy of somebody famous. He was just a humorous legend. Yet now perhaps he was the right kind of personality striking against the right sort of circumstances to produce the type of action and fire that could affect the existing era.
Ed and his two friends, Les Payten and Barbara Day, found him in a little park feeding pigeons. Or, rather, he found them. For in conformity with an ancient village belief that no one should be a stranger to anyone else, he grinned at them and said, "Hello, there! Nice young fellers. Nice girl! Sit and gab a while? I keep gettin' lonesome. Mixed up. Got to get straightened out. Or try, anyway. Put yourselves down? That's fine!"
Abashed and curious after that, Ed and Barbara and Les sat and mostly just listened.