“You mean everyone—everyone on this world who’s not killed outright—dies slowly in that damned hospital, hooked to machines?” Jesse persisted.
“I wish that were what we meant,” Bernie said. There was an uneasy silence. Then, with irony, he went on, “But you see, we have the galaxy’s finest medical facility in this colony—”
“And,” Kwame declared, “the galaxy’s finest medical facility can’t let people die.”
“Till they’ve disintegrated from old age, you mean.” God. It might take years, with unlimited forced treatment. . . .
“No, Jesse. It can’t let them die at all. At least not according to the Meds’ criteria.”
He stared at Kwame. “I guess I don’t quite see.”
“Our medical facility,” Bernie told him, “really is an advanced one. From the technological standpoint it’s superb. It has developed sophisticated techniques not common elsewhere, and as you know, its funds are unlimited. The law says everyone must be treated for everything. So you see, bodies are just—maintained. Indefinitely.”
“Even after they’re brain-dead?” Jesse asked in a low voice.
“Yes—like bodies from which organs for transplant were taken, back in the days before cloned organs were perfected.”
“But aren’t they going to run out of bed space someday?”
“Well, they don’t use regular rooms,” Carla said painfully. “The bodies are kept in stasis units, like those that were once used on slow starships. Besides the treatment floors there are maintenance floors. That’s a euphemism. The more accurate term is vaults.”
Peter put in quickly, “Jess, we need you to be aware that what you saw tonight was a crime involving all of us—even you, should it ever become known that you witnessed it. According to the law you’re now an accessory to murder.”
“Murder? All I got a glimpse of was a wrapped body, already dead. That’s all any of you saw.”
“But officially, you see, there is no death from natural causes here. This world has no cemeteries. To bury a body is murder.”
Think it couldn’t happen? We’re not quite to the stage of stasis vaults, but a lot of other things in the story are all too close to reality. In fact, some of them aren’t science fiction anymore. This site has lots of background information on implanted microchips, remote health monitoring technologies, moves toward compulsory medical care, and more -- including links, booklists, and even some videos, plus Sylvia Engdahl's comments.
Fortunately ESP, self-healing, and other powers of the mind are also real (read about them in the background information). And perhaps more people will gain the use of them in future centuries.
Please note: Stewards of the Flame was first issued in September 2007. In August 2009 its ISBN was changed due to a change in printer, and at that time it was reformatted to a slightly smaller size with wider page margins so as to match the sequel Promise of the Flame. The text of the two editions is identical except for minor error corrections and the addition of a reading group discussion guide.
When burned-out starship captain Jesse Sanders is seized by a dictatorial medical regime and detained on the colony planet Undine, he has no idea that he is about to be plunged into a bewildering new life that will involve ordeals and joys beyond anything he has ever imagined, as well as the love of a woman with powers that seem superhuman. Still less does he suspect that he must soon take responsibility for the lives of people he has come to care about and the preservation of their hopes for the future of humankind.