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My Brother's Keeper


TIME-SHARING TWINS

Lionel Salkind was a rising musical star. His twin brother, Leo Foss, was a researcher in government work that he couldn't talk about. Then the helicopter they were flying crashed.

When he woke up, Lionel learned that both he and Leo had sustained fatal injuries, and he was only alive because the surgeon had used organs from Leo to repair Lionel's slightly less damaged body. More than half of Lionel's brain was gone, and had been replaced with Leo's Lionel, in fact, had become.

HIS BROTHERS KEEPER


"Sheffield's science is fascinating and convincing and so are his scientists."
  -Joe Haldeman

"Charles Sheffield is one of the very best hard science fiction writers in the world."
-Kim Stanley Robinson

"Sheffield's uncommon vision and storytelling skill will keep you on the edge of your seat." 
-David Brin

"One of the most imaginative, exciting talents to appear on the science fiction scene. . . "
-Publishers Weekly

Cover art by Gary Ruddell



Paperback

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

First printing, June 2000

Distributed by Simon & Schuster
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN: 0-671-57873-1

Copyright © 1982 by Charles Sheffield

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

A Baen Books Original
Baen Publishing Enterprises
P.O. Box 1403
Riverdale, NY 10471
http://www.baen.com

Typeset by Windhaven Press
Auburn, NH

Electronic version by WebWrights
http://www.webwrights.com


A MAN OF PARTS

Sir Westcott read from a folder in a flat, toneless voice. It was my list of injuries. If I had been feeling sick when the surgeon began his catalog, I grew sicker as he went on with it.

Then he coughed and read, "Prognosis: terminal."

I remembered the punch line of an old tall story: "So what happened to you then, Bill?" "What happened to me? Why, I died, of course."

I gave a sort of hysterical titter. "What are you telling me? That I died and now I'm in Hell?"

"Nothing so sensational. Let me finish." Westcott pulled another sheet of paper from his folder. "Your brother. It tells the same story. Prognosis: terminal. For ten different reasons."

"It's been a month since the accident, and I'm still alive."

"Alive, and doing very well. But your brother Leo was in worse shape even than you were. He was sinking before we could even get him into the theater. I had to make a decision."

"You killed Leo!"

"No." He glowered down at me. "Your brother was a hopeless case, absolutely hopeless. And you were terribly injured. I had to make a decision. Save one, or save none. You died as much as Leo did."

"I'm here, and he isn't."

"Don't be too sure of that. You lost partial segments from three main brain lobes, but you had the brain stem and the midbrain completely intact. I took parts of Leo's brain, and used them to replace the lobe segments you lost."

"But Leo's dead. I don't feel half like Leo, and half like myself. I'm Lionel Salkind."

"All that proves is that you have the verbal part of the brain under control. That's all in your left hemisphere. If you want my honest opinion, yes, I think that Leo is still alive, in some sense, and he's inhabiting part of your skull."

He closed the folder. "And at some time—don't ask me when and where, or even how—I expect the two halves of the brain to integrate again. You'll become a single individual. And beyond that, I can't go."


BAEN BOOKS by CHARLES SHEFFIELD

My Brother's Keeper
Between the Strokes of Night
The Compleat McAndrew
Convergent Series
Transvergence
The Mind Pool
Proteus in the Underworld
Borderlands of Science

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