The six Arcadians had dinner together the night before Star Dancer was scheduled to depart for Earthsea and then Arcadia. They were still booking the private dining room at the hotel for their meals together.
“You don’t need to come out to see us off tomorrow,” JuPing said. “We’re just going to walk out and get in the passenger container. Nothing to see. And you four need to get into the clinic and get your treatments started or you’re never going to be going home. I would much rather say goodbye tonight, anyway.”
“If you’re sure, JuPing,” YongLin said.
“Yes, absolutely. We’ll see you in nine months or so, back home on Arcadia. Just take care of yourselves and do what the doctors tell you. Some parts of it aren’t particularly pleasant, but the results are worth it.”
“Yeah, like that one skin treatment that makes you itch all over for four hours. That wasn’t fun.”
“Now don’t go getting them apprehensive about it, Paul.”
“You brought it up.”
ChaoLi had to suppress a smile. She had never seen the private byplay between JuPing and Paul when they were Chen Zumu and Chen Zufu, even as JuPing’s tea girl. Now, in this exclusive club of past and future Chen, it was different.
Dinner was good, goodbyes were a little teary, and ChaoLi and JieMin went to bed early, so they would be well-rested for their admittance to the clinic tomorrow.
Admission to the clinic was as admission to any hospital for elective or scheduled procedures had been for centuries. Give the admissions clerk all the information, be ID tagged – here with a tag on a fingernail – be shown to your room.
When they got to their room, there was a robot sitting in the guest chair in the corner.
“A robot?” ChaoLi asked.
“Yes, ma’am. We’re using them for patient services now. Anything you need, or if you have any issues, just let him know.”
“I am most happy to serve you again, ma’am, sir.”
“Bert?”
“Yes, ma’am. I knew you would be going to the clinic here, of course. When it was decided the hundred robots you left behind would be stationed here, I swapped myself into that hundred, and, well, here I am.”
ChaoLi chuckled, then became concerned.
“You know that we will only be here three to six months, right, Bert?”
“Yes, ma’am. It is quite easy for us to swap assignments.”
“So you’ll swap back.”
“Of course. To Star Courier, isn’t it?”
“I’m not even sure, Bert.”
“I believe Star Courier will be assigned to the Tahiti run, ma’am.”
“Star Courier isn’t even finished yet, Bert.”
“No, ma’am. But it will be. And now, if I might ask, what would you like for lunch? The selection is rather more limited here than on Star Runner, I’m afraid.”
“I guess you guys haven’t taken over the kitchens here yet.”
“No, ma’am. Not yet.”
They were glad to change out of their street clothes into fleece loungers and booties. They were much warmer than street clothes intended for a subtropical climate, and forced inactivity in the clinic made them more likely to be cold.
Being in the clinic was like being in hospital anywhere. The boring routine. Difficulty sleeping without sufficient exercise. The ‘healthy’ food, which left a lot to be desired.
There were compensations. Bert’s presence was comforting. He was a reminder of the time before being in the clinic, which became more important as the weeks wore on. While most of the food was uninspired, the apple pie was stupendous, perhaps as good as the hotel’s. It seemed there simply wasn’t such a thing as bad apple pie on Tahiti. Or even mediocre apple pie.
David Bolton and Chen YongLin were in the next room, and their treatments were more or less in synch, at least initially. Davis and YongLin were sixty years old. The treatments could be expected to result in a physical age of about fifty-one.
ChaoLi and JieMin were forty years old, and the treatments could be expected to result in a physical age of about thirty-six. This meant that ChaoLi’s and JieMin’s treatments were less extensive – or at least less exhausting – so the two couples drifted out of synch over time.
The treatments themselves seemed innocuous, and ChaoLi couldn’t figure out how they could be doing anything. Most of them seemed to be genetic treatments, an RNA sequence tucked into a viral capsid from which the virus sequence had been removed. She didn’t understand the biology of it, but after those treatments, her body responded as if she had a cold as it worked to destroy the invader.
Some of those pseudo-colds were worse than others, and took longer to recover from. The doctors assured them their responses were normal, however. Bert was a great comfort during these periods, and mothered them with chicken soup and extra apple pie.
There was one sequence that did result in them being a bit itchy all over. A resequencing of the skin, the largest and most sensitive organ in the body. It was merely uncomfortable for ChaoLi and JieMin, although it was much more severe for David and YongLin due to their greater age.
ChaoLi could only imagine how uncomfortable it had been for David and JuPing.
The clinic itself was a massive complex, sprawling over a campus that had spread out over a square mile to the northwest from downtown Papeete.
The colony’s initial chairman and council had been warned by the medical researchers among the colonists how large the hospital complex could ultimately get. They had set aside a square mile north and west of the original hospital building as a city park. The complex had grown until it engulfed the park, despite building up as it went. Satellite facilities were located in other cities on Tahiti as well.
There were rare days during their treatment when ChaoLi and JieMin were allowed to go out into the downtown and walk about, eat food other than that provided in the clinic, and otherwise enjoy being out of the building for a few hours.
Most of the time, however, once they had recovered from one treatment, they were immediately given another.
Ad infinitum, or so it seemed.
ChaoLi didn’t notice many changes to herself. They would only be losing a few years. Perhaps her facial creases softened a bit. Her skin seemed a bit younger, thicker and more flexible. But there were no radical changes in her or, that she noticed, in JieMin.
David and YongLin was another story. They were losing almost a decade of their physical age, from sixty back to fifty-one. She could see it, and so could they. They also reported more energy, and fewer aches and pains as the treatment progressed.
ChaoLi kept in touch with her business contacts during this period, despite feeling much of the time like she had been beaten up and kicked about. On one occasion early in their treatment, she called Oliver Nieman, the Playa Planetary Chairman. When he accepted the call, he was seated in his big chair, with a plate of cookies to one side.
“Good morning, ChaoLi,” Nieman said when he took the call.
He was chewing a cookie.
“Good morning, Oliver.”
“To what do I owe the pleasure today?”
“I had several questions today, Oliver. The first one is likely the easiest. You see, I’ve been misplacing robots.”
Nieman laughed, a hearty rumble.
“Yes, I noticed that in my planetary balance sheets. Amber, Tahiti, Earthsea, Olympia. Even Arcadia. Why the list goes on and on.”
“Yes. When the robots finish the fitting out of our ships on the first leg of their journeys, they’re immediately ready to go do something else, and prefer not to deadhead back to Arcadia.”
Nieman nodded.
“Yes, they don’t like being idle.”
“The end result, though, Oliver, is that I am going to run out of robots. Can you send me another ten thousand when Star Hunter gets there?”
“Of course, of course. Do you want to make it fifteen thousand now, as last time, or do you prefer to call me back later to increase the amount?”
It was ChaoLi’s turn to laugh.
“OK, I give up. Let’s do fifteen thousand now, Oliver.”
“Splendid. And your next question, ChaoLi?”
“We figure one robot will replace about six human laborers, Oliver.”
“That’s right. It’s about six-point-three, I think, in our studies, but you’re very close.”
“That will be a huge disruption to our economies. The economies of the other colony planets. What I want to ask is, what did you do on Playa to mitigate that?”
“Ah, yes. Well, a couple points there, ChaoLi. First is that all the technologies coming on-line from the various colony planets will be a greater or lesser disruption on the others. These are all, in some way, disruptive technologies.
“Much greater lifespans – such as from Tahiti, for instance, or the other medically focused economies – will disrupt a lot of things. Young people and old people look at things differently. Having a much greater proportion of old people will change the way societies respond to things, especially change.”
“But the robots are potentially the most disruptive of the technologies, Oliver.”
“On the short term, perhaps. My second point is that our adaptation was slower than what you are looking at. Robots were initially expensive, and so their introduction was gradual, as functionality increased and prices came down.
“The issue now on other colonies is exacerbated because the robots have already peaked in functionality, while finding the bottom of the long-term pricing curve.
“Nevertheless, we do have some information on the things we did, which might be adaptable in some form to the current situation. I can send you this information, if you wish.”
“Please do, Oliver.”
“Of course, ChaoLi. I have one further thought on this matter that may help a great deal. It’s a way to slow the introduction of the robots into the labor fields, while reaping enormous personal benefits everyone will appreciate.”
“That sounds really good, Oliver. What is it?”
“Consider. We now have anti-aging technology from Tahiti, medical nanotechnology from Amber, endocrinology from Bali, immunology from Fiji, anti-cancer technology from Nirvana, human genetics from Spring, and even direct neural virtual reality from Westernesse.
“One might contemplate a medical clinic on each colony that combines all these technologies and provides them to the colony’s citizens.”
Nieman popped a cookie into his mouth and chewed while ChaoLi responded.
“That would be almost two dozen huge facilities, Oliver, to service twenty million people or so per colony in any finite time. Those populations are also doubling every twenty years. And it would take hundreds of thousands or millions of people to staff all those clinics.”
“Huge facilities that can be built and expanded by robots, ChaoLi, and thousands of people to supervise millions of robots that could, I am sure, master the known methods of those technologies’ application.”
ChaoLi just stared at him, her eyes wide, and Nieman smiled.
“You see it, yes?” he asked.
“Yes, of course. It would take years – perhaps decades – but it’s doable.”
“Years during which people could learn new things, creative things – which, no disrespect to my technical people, their robots cannot do – and be ready when robots began moving, gradually, off of that effort into the broader economy.
“And when they did, the robots would not be resented, they would instead be loved, for having provided such wonderful medical technology to the citizens of our planets, resulting in much longer and healthier lives for everyone.”
Nieman popped another cookie into his mouth and beamed a huge smile as he chewed.
“Oliver, you’re a genius. You just also solved the problem of how to make these medical technologies available to more than just the wealthy.”
“Not at all, ChaoLi. I am merely selfish. I have spent the odd hour thinking of how I might induce the providers of all those technologies to build clinics on Playa, so that I might make use of them. Without having to travel there, which, no disrespect to yourself, I would find distasteful.”
ChaoLi smiled.
“Have the anti-aging people come to you, Oliver? Brilliant.”
“Actually, I was thinking the endocrinology people might be of more immediate use to me, ChaoLi. I seem to have something of a hormone imbalance.”
Nieman popped yet another cookie into his mouth and smiled beatifically.
ChaoLi laughed like little bells.
ChaoLi shared the recording of her conversation with Oliver Nieman with JieMin.
“That really is a good idea,” JieMin said. “We may be able to generalize on it a bit. What it amounts to is employing the robots first on things that aren’t being done now, while the people who are working on current projects remain employed and get trained up in other skills.”
“I worry not everyone has skills that would translate to a design position, JieMin.”
“Understood, but that may not be as much of an issue as you think, ChaoLi. There are a lot more activities falling broadly under ‘design’ than just technology. Art, sculpture, crafts of various kinds, cooking up new recipes, designing furniture. In any case, I think we need a meeting.”
ChaoLi nodded.
“Agreed. I’ll set it up.”
The conference room in their wing of the clinic had a display big enough for the family meeting. ChaoLi, JieMin, David, and YongLin met there, while Paul and YongLin joined from their stateroom in Star Runner, and MinChao and Jessica joined from her tea room on Arcadia.
ChaoLi had sent the recording of her conversation with Oliver Nieman to everyone in advance, and appended JieMin’s reaction.
“Now that you’ve had time to think about it, JieMin, elaborate on your reaction, please,” Jessica said.
“Of course, Chen Zumu. The key feature is that it slows down the disruption to manageable levels. My estimate is that it spreads it out over ten to twenty years. That minimizes the damage to individuals, because it gives people time to find and migrate to new positions within the ultimately resulting economy.
“It also provides significant benefits to everyone, and speeds the provision of those benefits to the entire population. That goes a long way to countering what could otherwise be a festering resentment of the new technologies in general and the robots in particular.
“Finally, it does get us to a much higher standard of living, and one in which everyone benefits, pretty quickly, rather than the benefits starting with the rich and filtering down more slowly. That last has all kinds of potential societal issues, which this neatly sidesteps.”
“That’s my take on it as well, Jessica,” Paul said.
“Oliver is quite a smart fellow when you get down to it,” JuPing said. “This is the sort of thing Paul and I dreamed about all those years ago.”
“Are we agreed, then?” MinChao asked.
He scanned the other attendants, getting nods from all present.
“Very well. David, YongLin, this is your assignment. To get all the planetary leaders working on Planetary Chairman Nieman’s proposal. They are all senior executives for their planets, and none of them got to be where they are by being stupid. They’re all wrestling with these issues already.
“It would probably be best to encourage Tahiti President Wang to call a meeting and kick it off, and have Mr. Nieman propose his solution. Then let them run with the ball, but stay in communication with their effort and be prepared to help out from the sidelines.
“ChaoLi, JieMin, I want you involved in this effort as well. JieMin, it would be helpful if you wrote up your economic analysis as a paper. Something with an executive summary for the planetary executives that heads up a much more meaty analysis for their staffs.
ChaoLi, you already have relationships with all the planetary executives through your Jixing Trading activities. Help get that meeting put together, and encourage people to attend. Stay in touch and be a sounding board for them. Be prepared to spot, and assist in resolving, any issues that may come up. Catching any issues early will be very helpful.
“This effort will likely consume most of your tenure, David, YongLin, as getting a hyperspace transportation system up and running did ours. ChaoLi, JieMin, you will manage and shape this emergent new economy throughout your tenure.
“This is why you all need to be involved now.”
David, YongLin, JieMin and ChaoLi all nodded. All eight of the once, current, and future Chen had discussed the issues as near-equals in their meetings, but when push came to shove, there could be only one decision maker.
Chen Zufu had spoken.
“Yes, Chen Zufu,” Paul said for them all.