Andrew Mayden

By Andrew Mayden

Nine Lives by Ursula K. Le Guin is a science fiction short story published back in 1969. While she is not known for her hard core science fiction, this story certainly qualifies. The premise is that far in our future there had been some kind of disaster that decimated the human population. To cope with the loss of manpower and get Earth’s economy rolling again, humanity resorts to cloning as a means of rebuilding.

The story follows two explorers from the Exploitation Corps (Martin and Pugh) who are setting up a mine on an alien world. This is how Earth is supplied with the raw materials it needs for it’s continued growth. As their time on the planet winds down, replacements are sent to help establish and maintain the mine. This replacement turns out to be a ten clone, that means they consist of a set of ten people all cloned from the same progenitor and are all trained together. They each have their own area of focus and their own specialty and together they can effectively and efficiently establish and run the mine.

Soon into their stay, disaster strikes. A collapse at the mine shaft kills nine of the ten clones. The sole survivor is left in a near comatose state, blank and despondent. The two men try to help him regain himself, and eventually teach him how to function without the support of his other selves. Then as the two men prepare to leave they invite him to join them. The next wave of worker bees sent to the planet to pick up were the clones left off is another set of clones. This time a twelve set.

On the surface, the story might seem just another cloning story dealing with the tired old tropes of individuality and the value of the human soul. However, Le Guin takes the concept one step further, and it is this extra step that makes the story worth reading.

The set of ten clones operate almost as a single person. They think alike, talk alike, act alike. They can complete each others thoughts. They use a short hand form of communication as their minds are almost identical and can easily understand what the others are thinking since they are all derived from a man named John Chow. And there’s more. They are divided equally between male and female (it being an easy task to take male cells and delete the Y chromosome to revert it to its default female) so they can sexually satisfy each other.

The author makes references throughout the story to underline this point. If one makes a mistake, none tease him. If one makes a joke, nine others will laugh. If one cries, he has a support group around him at all times who understand what he’s feeling. This little closed community of people are able to function socially without needing to go outside their clique.

The story takes one of these clones, John Kaph Chow, and strips him of his support group. He learns how to interact outside of himself. The clone learns good manners, he learns how to deal with other people. He learns empathy. In short, he learns what it means to be fully human.