Brave New Worlds

time waking up in the morning. He gets it from me, not his father, who is always up before the crack of dawn, especially since the BeMod wide dispersal aerosol went into production.
    "Tommy, wake up!" I call out toward his room. There's only a muffled grumbling in response.
    I walk up to his doorway. "Really, Tommy, it's time to get going. You'll be late for school. "
    He rolls over, groaning, but doesn't make a move to get up. I unholster my parenting gun and shift the round in the chamber from Go to Bed to Wake Up .
    "Get up, Tommy," I say as I draw a bead on his sleep-tousled head. "I'm not going to tell you again. "

Caught In The Organ Draft
    by Robert Silverberg

    Robert Silverberg—four-time Hugo Award-winner, five-time winner of the Nebula Award, SFWA Grand Master, SF Hall of Fame honoree—is the author of nearly five hundred short stories, nearly one hundred-and-fifty novels, and is the editor of in the neighborhood of one hundred anthologies, including my own The Living Dead , Federations , and The Way of the Wizard . Among his most famous works are Lord Valentine's Castle , Dying Inside , Nightwings , and The World Inside . Learn more at www.majipoor. com.

    The United States no longer has a draft. Military conscription was ended under the Richard Nixon administration in 1973. But before that, millions of American men experienced compulsory military service. When confronted with the possibility of wartime horror and the very real threat of death, these men could not run. They faced long sentences in military jails that were famous for their harsh conditions. Once their time was over, their legal records would be ruined.

    These men could give their bodies and lives to the war machines, or they could throw away their futures. that was their choice.

    In our next story, Robert Silverberg paints a reality where young people must once again choose between their bodies and their futures. Their organs are needed by the rich and important, people who've got the power of the law on their side. A conscripted organ donor can live without a lung or a kidney, but a convicted draft dodger might wish he'd never been born.

    Here is a tale that pushes the boundaries of ownership and duty and leaves us ready to burn our draft cards and emigrate to another world.

    L ook there, Kate, down by the promenade. Two splendid seniors, walking side by side near the water's edge. They radiate power, authority, wealth, assurance. He's a judge, a senator, a corporation president, no doubt, and she's—what?—a professor emeritus of international law, let's say. There they go toward the plaza, moving serenely, smiling, nodding graciously to passersby. How the sunlight gleams in their white hair! I can barely stand the brilliance of that reflected aura: it blinds me, it stings my eyes. What are they, eighty, ninety, a hundred years old? At this distance they seem much younger—they hold themselves upright, their backs are straight, they might pass for being only fifty or sixty. But I can tell. Their confidence, their poise, mark them for what they are. And when they were nearer I could see their withered cheeks, their sunken eyes. No cosmetics can hide that. These two are old enough to be our great-grandparents. They were well past sixty before we were even born, Kate. How superbly their bodies function! But why not? We can guess at their medical histories. She's had at least three hearts, he's working on his fourth set of lungs, they apply for new kidneys every five years, their brittle bones are reinforced with hundreds of skeletal snips from the arms and legs of hapless younger folk, their dimming sensory apparatus is aided by countless nerve-grafts obtained the same way, their ancient arteries are freshly sheathed with sleek teflon. Ambulatory assemblages of secondhand human parts, spliced here and there with synthetic or mechanical organ substitutes, that's all they are. And what am I, then, or you? Nineteen years old and vulnerable. In their eyes I'm nothing but a ready stockpile of healthy organs, waiting to serve their needs. Come here, son. What a fine strapping young man you are! Can you spare a kidney for me? A lung? A choice little segment of intestine? Ten centimeters of your ulnar nerve? I need a few pieces of you, lad. You won't deny a distinguished elder like me what I ask, will you? Will you?

    Today my draft notice, a small crisp document, very official-looking, came shooting out of the data slot when I punched