his advances. It was not that he had lost his magic touch, but that Cytotech’s marketing had given it to far too many others. When the relevant tissue-transformations had been the secret advantage of a favored few, they had used it with care and discretion, but now that aphrodisiac sweat was commonplace, any reasonably attractive woman was likely to encounter it several times a week. Because women were continually sated with the feelings that it evoked they could no longer be conditioned to associate the sensation with the touch of a particular person. Greta, Jacqueline and Morella were quite conscious of what was happening when he touched them, and although they thanked him for the compliment, each of them was utterly unimpressed.
Giovanni realized that promiscuity was fast destroying the aphrodisiac value of his first discovery. His quick mind made him sensitive to all kinds of possibilities that might be opened up by the more general release of this particular invention, and he began to look in the news for evidence of social change.
The logic of the situation was quite clear to him. As users found their seductive touch less effective, they would tend to use it more and more frequently, thus spreading satiation even further and destroying all prospect of the desired result. In addition, people would no longer use the device simply for the purpose of sexual conquest. Many men and women would be taken by the ambition to make everybody love them, in the hope of securing thereby the social and economic success that the original purchasers of the technology had already had. In consequence, the world would suffer from a positive epidemic of good feeling. This plague would not set the entire world to making love, but it might set the entire world to making friends. The most unlikely people might soon be seen to be relaxing into the comfort of infinite benevolence.
Giovanni monitored the headlines very carefully, and realized before it became generally known that he had wrought a more profound change in human affairs than he had intended or supposed.
Wars were gradually petering out.
Terrorism was on the decline.
Violent crime was becoming steadily rarer.
Oddly enough, these trends passed largely unnoticed by the world at large. The majority of people did not begin to wake up to the significance of it all until a much-advertised contest to settle the heavyweight boxing championship of the world was stopped in the third round when the weeping combatants realized that they could not bear to throw another punch, and left the ring together with their arms around one another’s shoulders.
Because of these upheavals in the world’s routines, the clinical trials of Giovanni’s new hormones and enkephalins attracted a little less attention than they might have, but their outstanding success was still a matter for widespread celebration. In 2036 Giovanni was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize to set beside his earlier award, and there was some discussion about the possibility of making it the last prize of its kind, given that the world no longer seemed to require peacemakers. Once again, Giovanni became the darling of the world’s media. He was billed as a modern Prometheus, sometimes even as a modern Dionysus, who had brought into the world of men a divine fire more precious than any vulgar power-source.
Giovanni was still embarrassed by these periodic waves of media exposure. He still felt very self-conscious about his physical appearance, and every time he saw his own picture on news-screen or in a videomag he blushed with the thought that half a billion viewers were probably saying to themselves: “He doesn’t look like a Casanova!” He was probably being oversensitive; nowadays it was his face and his achievements that were now called to the mind of the man in the street by the mention of the name Casanova; his ancient namesake had been eclipsed in the public consciousness.
In addition, Giovanni no longer appeared to the unbiased eye to be as unprepossessing as he once had seemed. He was now graciously bald, and his bare pate was by no means as freakish as the tangled black hair that once had sprouted there. He still wore spectacles for his myopia, but corneal surgery had corrected his astigmatism, and his eyes now looked kind and soft behind the lenses, not at all distorted. His complexion was still poor, but his skin had been roughened and toughened by age and exposure to the elements, and its appearance was no longer offensive. His paleness and frailness could now be seen as appealing rather than appalling.
He was startled the first time that he realized that a woman was using his own aphrodisiac technology upon him, and quickly jumped to the conclusion that she must be one of those people who used it on everyone, but he gradually became accustomed to the idea that he really was admired and desired. In time, the secretion of aphrodisiac sweat became subject to a new etiquette, whereby indiscriminate use was held to be in bad taste, and also to be unnecessary as it could now be taken for granted that everyone could love one another even without its aid.
Politeness came to demand that a sophisticated and civilized person would use the Casanova secretion occasionally and discreetly, to signal a delicate expression of erotic interest with no offense to be taken if there was no response. As this new code of behavior evolved, Giovanni was surprised to find himself a frequent target for seduction, and for a while he reveled in sexual success. Many of the younger women, of course, were interested primarily in his wealth and status, but he did not mind that—he could, after all, claim responsibility for his status and wealth, which he had won by effort.
Anyway, he loved them all. He loved everybody, and everybody loved him.
It was that kind of a world, now.
In this way, Giovanni Casanova succeeded at last in adapting to his name. He lived up to the reputation of his august namesake for a year or two, and then decided that the attractions of the lifestyle were overrated. He gladdened his mother’s heart by marrying again, and this time he chose a woman who was very like the earliest memories which he had of his mother. His new bride was named Janine. She had been born in Manchester, and she had embarked on a career in cosmetic cytogenics, which was the nearest thing to hairdressing that the world of 2036 could offer. She was much younger than Giovanni, but did not mind the age difference in the least.
Giovanni and Janine favored one another constantly with the most delicate psychochemical strokings, and learned to play the most beautiful duets with all the ingenious hormonal instruments of Giovanni’s invention, but they also had a special feeling for one another—and eventually for their children—which went beyond mere chemistry and physiology: an affection which was entirely a triumph of the will. This was a treasure which, they both believed, could never have come out of one of Giovanni’s test tubes.
With all these advantages, they were able to live happily ever after.
And so was everybody else.
BEDSIDE CONVERSATIONS
“It’s not entirely unprecedented,” said the doctor, “but so far as I know, this is the first time it’s happened in the present medical context—which means, of course, that it poses a novel moral problem. I’ll have to refer it to the hospital’s Ethics Committee, of course, and they’ll want to interview you, but I’m certain that the essential decision will be left in your hands.”
Gerald heard what was being said to him, but couldn’t find a sensible way to react to it. It was as though his thought-processes had seized up, leaving all the ideas in his head stuck fast, grinding against one another painfully as he tried to force them into motion again.
Dr. McClelland waited politely for an answer, but when none came he repeated the last phrase, for the sake of emphasis. “In your hands,” he said, as though he were bestowing a favour.
Gerald found his voice again. “What did you say it was called?” he asked.
“Fetus in fetu. What happens, you see, is that the fertilized ovum divides, as it does when producing identical twins—but then one
