Immortality, Inc

11

The head technician and the bearded doctor were arguing near the reincarnation machine, with their assistants ranged respectfully behind them. The battle was quite technical, but Blaine gathered that they were trying to determine the cause of the reincarnation failure. Each seemed to feel that the fault lay in the other's province.

The old doctor insisted that the machine settings must have been faulty, or an uncompensated power drop had occurred. The head technician swore the machine was perfect. He felt certain that Reilly hadn't been physically fit for the strenuous attempt.

Neither would yield an inch. But being reasonable men, they soon reached a compromise solution. The fault, they decided, lay in the nameless spirit who had fought Reilly for possession of Fitzsimmons’ body, and had supplanted him.

“But who was it?” the head technician asked. “A ghost, do you think?”

“Possibly,” the doctor said, “though it's damned rare for a ghost to possess a living body. Still, he talked crazy enough to be a ghost.”

“Whoever he was,” the head technician said, “he took over the host too late. The body was definitely zombie. Anyhow, no one could be blamed for it.”

“Right,” said the doctor. “I'll certify to the apparent soundness of the equipment.”

“Fair enough,” said the head technician. “And I'll testify to the apparent fitness of the patient.”

They exchanged a look of perfect understanding.

The directors were holding an immediate conference of their own, trying to determine what the short-range effects would be upon the Rex corporate structure, and how the announcement should be made to the public, and whether all Rex personnel should be given a day off to visit the Reilly Family Palace of Death.

Old Reilly's original body lay back in its chair, beginning to stiffen, wearing a detached, derisive grin.

Marie Thorne recovered consciousness. “Come on,” she said, leading Blaine out of the theater. They hurried down long grey corridors to a street door. Outside, she hailed a helicab and gave the driver an address.

“Where are we going?” Blaine asked, as the helicab climbed and banked.

“To my place. Rex is going to be a madhouse for a while.” She began rearranging her hair.

Blaine settled back against the cushions and looked down on the glittering city. From that height it looked like an exquisite miniature, a multi-colored mosaic from the Thousand and One Nights. But somewhere down there, walking the streets and levels was the zombie, trying to remember — him.

“But why me?” Blaine asked out loud.

Marie Thorne glanced at him. “Why you and the zombie? Well, why not? Haven't you ever made any mistakes?”

“I suppose I have. But they’re finished and done with.”

She shook her head. “Maybe mistakes ended for good in your time. Today nothing ever dies for certain. That's one of the great disadvantages of a life after death, you know. One's mistakes sometimes refuse to lie decently dead and buried. Sometimes they follow you around.”

“So I see,” Blaine said. “But I've never done anything that would bring up that.”

She shrugged indifferently. “In that case, you’re better than most of us.”

Never had she seemed more alien to him. The helicab began a slow decent. And Blaine brooded over the disadvantages inherent in all advantages.

In his own time he had seen the control of disease in the world's backward areas result in an exploding birthrate, famine, plague. He had seen nuclear power breed nuclear war. Every advantage generated its own specific disadvantages. Why should it be different today?

A certified, scientific hereafter was undoubtedly an advantage to the race. Manipulation had again caught up with theory! But the disadvantages… There was a certain inevitable weakening of the protective barrier around mundane life, some rips in the curtain, a few holes in the dike. The dead refused to lie decently still, they insisted upon mingling with the quick. To whose advantage? Ghosts, too — undoubtedly logical, operating within the boundaries of known natural laws. But that might be cold comfort to a haunted man.

Today, Blaine thought, a whole new stratum of existence impinged upon man's existence on Earth. Just as the zombie impinged uncomfortable on his existence.

The helicab landed on the roof of an apartment building. Marie Thorne paid, and led Blaine to her apartment.

It was a large airy apartment, pleasingly feminine, and furnished with a certain dramatic flair. There was more bright color than Blaine would have thought compatible with Miss Blaine's sombre personality; but perhaps the vivid yellows and sharp reds expressed a wish of some sort, a compensation for the restraint of her business life. Or perhaps it was just the prevailing style. The apartment contained the sort of gadgetry that Blaine associated with the future; self-adjusting lighting and air-conditioning, self-conforming armchairs, and a push-button bar that produced an adequate Martini.

Marie Thorne went into one of the bedrooms. She returned in a high-collared housedress and sat down on a couch opposite him.

“Well, Blaine, what are your plans?”

“I thought I'd ask you for a loan.”

“Certainly.”

“In that case my plan is to find a hotel room and start looking for a job.”

“It won't be easy,” she said, “but I know some people who might —”

“No thanks,” Blaine said. “I hope this doesn't sound too silly, but I'd rather find a job on my own.”

“No, it doesn't sound silly. I just hope it's possible. How about some dinner?”

“Fine. Do you cook, too?”

“I set dials,” she told him. “Let's see. How would you like a genuine Martian meal?”

“No thanks,” Blaine said. “Martian food is tasty, but it doesn't stick to your ribs. Would you happen to have a steak around the place?”

Marie set the dials and her auto-chef did the rest, selecting the food from pantry and freezer, peeling, unwrapping, washing and cooking them, and ordering new items to replace those used. The meal was perfect; but Marie seemed oddly embarrassed about it. She apologized to Blaine for the completely mechanical operation. After all, he came from an age in which women had opened their own cans, and done their own tasting; but they'd probably had more leisure time, too.

The sun had set by the time they finished their coffee. Blaine said, “Thank you very much, Miss Thorne. Now if you could loan me that money, I'll get started.”

She looked surprised. “At night?”

“I'll find a hotel room. You've been very kind, but I wouldn't want to presume any further —”

“That's all right,” she said. “Stay here tonight.”

“All right,” Blaine said. His mouth was suddenly dry, and his heart was pounding with suspicious rapidity. He knew there was nothing personal in her invitation; but his body didn't seem to understand. It insisted upon reacting hopefully, expectantly even, to the controlled and antiseptic Miss Thorne.

She gave him a bedroom and a pair of green pajamas. Blaine closed the door when she left, undressed and got into bed. The light went out when he told it to.

In a little while, just as his body had expected, Miss Thorne came in wearing something white and gossamer, and lay down beside him.

They lay side by side in silence. Marie Thorne moved closer to him, and Blaine slipped an arm under her head.

He said, “I thought you weren't attracted to my type.”

“Not exactly. I said I preferred tall, lean men.”

“I was once a tall, lean man.”

“I suspected it.”

They were both silent. Blaine began to grow uncomfortable and apprehensive. What did this mean? Had she some fondness for him? Or was this simply a custom of the age, a sort of Eskimo hospitality? “Miss Thorne,” he said, “I wonder if —”

“Oh be quiet!” she said, suddenly turning toward him, her eyes enormous in the shadowy room. “Do you have to question everything, Tom?” Later she said, dreamily, “Under the circumstances, I think you can call me Marie.”

In the morning Blaine showered, shaved and dressed. Marie dialed a breakfast for them. After they had eaten she gave him a small envelope.

“I can loan you more when you need it,” she said. “Now about finding a job —”

“You've helped me very much,” Blaine said. “The rest I'd like to do on my own.”

“All right. My address and telephone number are on the envelope. Please call me as soon as you have a hotel.”

“I will,” Blaine said, watching her closely. There was no hint of the Marie of last night. It might have been a different person entirely. But her studied self-possession was reaction enough for Blaine. Enough, at least for the moment.

At the door she touched his arm. “Tom,” she said, “please be careful. And call me.”

“I will, Marie,” Blaine said.

He went into the city happy and refreshed, and intent upon conquering the world.

12

Blaine's first idea had been to make a round of the yacht-design offices. But he decided against it simply by picturing a yacht designer from 1806 walking into an office in 1958.

The quaint old man might be very talented; but how would that help him when he was asked what he knew about metacentric shelf analysis, flow diagrams, centers of effort, and the best locations for RDF and sonar? What company would pay him while he learned the facts about reduction gears, exfoliating paints, tank testing, propeller pitch, heat exchange systems, synthetic sailcloth…

Not a chance, Blaine decided. He couldn't walk into a design office 152 years behind the times and ask for a job. A job as what? Perhaps he could study and catch up to 2110 technology. But he'd have to do it on his own time.

Right now, he'd take anything he could get.

He went to a newsstand and purchased a micro-film New York Times and a viewer. He walked until he found a bench, sat down and turned to the classified ads. Quickly he skipped past the skilled categories, where he couldn't hope to qualify, and came to unskilled labor. He read:

It was apparent to Blaine that even the unskilled labor of 2110 was beyond his present capacity. Turning the page to Employment for Boys, he read:

So — he couldn't even qualify as a newsboy! It was a depressing thought. Finding a job was going to be more difficult than he had imagined. Didn't anyone dig ditches or carry packages in this city? Did robots do all the menial work, or did you need a Ph.D. even to lug a wheelbarrow? What sort of world was this?

He turned to the front page of the Times for an answer, adjusted his viewer, and read the news of the day:

A new spacefield was under construction at Oxa, New South Mars.

A poltergeist was believed responsible for several industrial fires in the Chicago area. Tentative exorcism proceedings were under way.

Rich copper deposits had been discovered in the Sigma-G sector of the asteroid belt.

Doppelganger activities had increased in Berlin.

A new survey was being made of octopi villages in the Mindanao Deep.

A mob in Spenser, Alabama, lynched and burned the town's two local zombies. Legal action was being taken against the mob leaders.

A leading anthropologist declared the Tuamoto Archipelago in Oceania to be the last stronghold of 20th century simplicity.

The Atlantic Fish Herders’ Association was holding its annual convention at the Waldorf.

A werewolf was unsuccessfully hunted in the Austrian Tyrol. Local villages were warned to keep a twenty-four-hour watch for the beast.

A bill was introduced into the House of Representatives to outlaw all hunts and gladiatorial events. It was defeated.

A berserker took four lives in downtown San Diego.

Helicopter fatalities reached the one million mark for the year.

Blaine put the newspaper aside, more depressed than ever. Ghosts, doppelgangers, werewolves, poltergeists… He didn't like the sound of those vague, grim, ancient words which today seemed to represent actual phenomena. He had already met a zombie. He didn't want to encounter any more of the dangerous side-effects of the hereafter.

He started walking again. He went through the theater district, past glittering marquees, posters advertising the gladiatorial events at Madison Square Garden, billboards heralding solidovision programs and sensory shows, flashing signs proclaiming overtone concerts and Venusian pantomime. Sadly Blaine remembered that he might have been part of this dazzling fairyland if only Reilly hadn't changed his mind. He might be appearing at one of those theaters now, billed as the Man from the Past…

Of course! A Man from the Past, Blaine suddenly realized, had a unique and indisputable novelty value, an inherent talent. The Rex Corporation had saved his life in 1958 solely in order to use that talent. But they had changed their minds. So what was to prevent him from using his novelty value for himself? And for that matter, what else could he do? Show business looked like the only possible business for him.

He hurried into a gigantic office building and found six theatrical agents listed on the board. He picked Barnex, Scofield & Styles, and took the elevator to their offices on the 19th floor.

He entered a luxurious waiting room panelled with gigantic solidographs of smiling actresses. At the far end of the room, a pretty receptionist raised an inquiring eyebrow at him.

Blaine went up to her desk. “I'd like to see someone about my act,” he told her.

“I'm so sorry,” she said. “We’re all filled.”

“This is a very special act.”

“I'm really terribly sorry. Perhaps next week.”

“Look,” Blaine said, “My act is really unique. You see, I'm a man from the past.”

“I don't care if you’re the ghost of Scott Memvale,” she said sweetly. “We’re filled. Try us next week.

Blaine turned to go. A short, stocky man breezed past him, nodding to the receptionist.

“Morning, Miss Thatcher.”

“Morning, Mr. Barnex.”

Barnex! One of the agents! Blaine hurried after him and grabbed his sleeve.

Mr. Barnex,“ he said, ”I have an act —“

“Everybody has an act,” Barnex said wearily.

“But this act is unique!”

“Everybody's act is unique,” Barnex said. “Let go my sleeve, friend. Try us next week.”

“I'm from the past!” Blaine cried, suddenly feeling foolish. Barnex turned and stared at him. He looked at though he might be on the verge of calling the police, or Bellevue. But Blaine plunged recklessly on.

“I really am!” he said. “I have absolute proof. The Rex Corporation snatched me out of the past. Ask them!”

“Rex?” Barnex said. “Yeah, I head something about that snatch over at Lindy's… Hmm. Come into my office, Mister —”

“Blaine, Tom Blaine.” He followed Barnex into a tiny, cluttered cubicle. “Do you think you can use me?” he asked.

“Maybe,” Barnex said, motioning Blaine to a chair. “It depends. Tell me, Mr. Blaine, what period of the past are you from?”

“In 1958. I have an intimate knowledge of the nineteen thirties, forties and fifties. By way of stage experience I did some acting in college, and a professional actress friend of mine once told me I had a natural way of —”

“1958? That's 20th Century?”

“Yes, that's right.”

The agent shook his head. “Too bad. Now if you'd been a 6th Century Swede or a 7th Century Jap, I could have found work for you. I've had no difficulty booking appearances for our 1st Century Roman or our 4th Century Saxon, and I could use a couple more like them. But it's damned hard finding anyone from those early centuries, now that time travel is illegal. And B.C. is completely out.”

“But what about the 20th Century?” Blaine asked.

“It's filled.”

“Filled?”

“Sure. Ben Therler from 1953 gets all the available stage appearances.”

“I see,” Blaine said, getting slowly to his feet. “Thanks anyhow, Mr. Barnex.”

“Not at all,” Barnex said, “Wish I could help. If you'd been from any time or place before the 11th Century, I could probably book you. But there's not much interest in recent stuff like the 19th and 20th Centuries… Say, why don't you go see Therler? It isn't likely, but maybe he can use an understudy or something.” He scrawled an address on a piece of paper and handed it to Blaine. Blaine took it, thanked him again, and left. In the street he stood for a moment, cursing his luck. His one unique and indisputable talent, his novelty value, had been usurped by Ben Therler of 1953! Really, he thought, time travel should be kept more exclusive. It just wasn't fair to drop a man here and then ignore him.

He wondered what sort of man Therler was. Well, he'd find out. Even if Therler didn't need an understudy, it would be a pleasure and relief to talk to someone from home. And Therler, who had lived here longer, might have some ideas on what a 20th century man could do in 2110.

He flagged a helicab and gave him the address. In fifteen minutes he was in Therler's apartment building, pressing the doorbell.

The door was opened by a sleek, chubby, complacent-looking man wearing a dressing gown.

“You the photographer?” he asked. “You’re too early.”

Blaine shook his head. “Mr. Therler, you've never met me before. I'm from your own century. I'm from 1958.”

“Is that so?” Therler asked, with obvious suspicion.

“It's the truth,” Blaine said, “I was snatched by the Rex Corporation. You can check my story with them.”

Therler shrugged his shoulders. “Well, what is it you want?”

“I was hoping you might be able to use an understudy or something —”

“No, no, I never use an understudy,” Therler said, starting to close the door.

“I didn't think so,” Blaine said. “The real reason I came was just to talk to you. It gets pretty lonely being out of one's century. I wanted to talk to someone from my own age. I thought maybe you'd feel that way, too.”

“Me? Oh!” Therler said, smiling with sudden stage warmth. “Oh, you mean about the good old twentieth century! I'd love to talk to you about it sometime, pal. Little old New York! The Dodgers and Yankees, the hansoms in the park, the roller-skating rink in Rockefeller Plaza. I sure miss it all! Boy! But I'm afraid I'm a little busy now.”

“Certainly,” Blaine said. “Some other time.”

“Fine! I'd really love to!” Therler said, smiling even more brilliantly. “Call my secretary, will you, old man? Schedules, you know. Well have a really great old gab some one of these days. I suppose you could use a spare dollar or two —”

Blaine shook his head.

“Then, ‘bye,” Therler said heartily. “And do call soon.”

Blaine hurried out of the building. It was bad enough being robbed of you novelty value; it was worse being robbed by an out-and-out phony, a temporal fraud who'd never been within a hundred years of 1953. The Rockefeller roller — skating rink! And even that slip hadn't been necessary. Everything about the man screamed counterfeit. But sadly, Blaine was probably the only man in 2110 who could detect the imposture.

That afternoon Blaine purchased a change of clothing and a shaving kit. He found a room in a cheap hotel on Fifth Avenue. For the next week, he continued looking for work.

He tried the restaurants, but found that human dishwashers were a thing of the past. At the docks and spaceports, robots were doing most of the heavy work. One day he was tentatively approved for a position as package-wrapping inspector at Gimbel-Macy's. But the personnel department, after carefully studying his personality profile, irritability index and suggestibility rating, vetoed him in favor of a dull-eyed little man from Queens who held a master's degree in package design.

Blaine was wearily returning to his hotel one evening when he recognized a face in the dense crowd. It was a man he would have known instantly, anywhere. He was about Blaine's age, a compact, redheaded, snub-nosed man with slightly protruding teeth and a small red blotch on his neck. He carried himself with a certain jaunty assurance, the unquenchable confidence of a man for whom something always turns up.

“Ray!” Blaine shouted. “Ray Melhill!” He pushed through the crowd and seized him by the arm, “Ray! How'd you get out?”

The man pulled his arm away and smoothed the sleeve of his jacket. “My name is not Melhill,” he said.

“It's not? Are you sure?”

“Of course I'm sure,” he said, starting to move away.

Blaine stepped in front of him. “Wait a minute. You look exactly like him, even down to the radiation scar. Are you sure you aren't Ray Melhill, a flow-control man off the spaceship Bremen?”

“Quite certain,” the man said coldly. “You have confused me with someone else, young man.”

Blaine stared hard as the man started to walk away. Then he reached out, caught the man by a shoulder and swung him around.

“You dirty body-thieving bastard!” Blaine shouted, his big right fist shooting out.

The man who so exactly resembled Melhill was knocked back against a building, and slid groggily to the pavement. Blaine started for him, and people moved quickly out of his way.

“Berserker!” a woman screamed, and someone else took up the cry. Blaine caught sight of a blue uniform shoving through the crowd toward him.

A flat-hat! Blaine ducked into the crowd. He turned a corner quickly, then another, slowed to a walk and looked back. The policeman was not in sight. Blaine started walking again to his hotel.

It had been Melhill's body; but Ray no longer occupied it. There had been no last-minute reprieve for him, no final chance. His body had been taken from him and sold to the old man whose querulous mind wore the jaunty body like a suit of ill-fitting, too-youthful clothes.

Now he knew his friend was really dead. Blaine drank silently to him in a neighborhood bar before returning to his hotel.

The clerk stopped him as he passed the desk. “Blaine? Got a message for you. Just a minute.” He went into the office.

Blaine waited, wondering who it could be from. Marie? But he hadn't called Marie yet, and wasn't planning to until he found work.

The clerk came back and handed him a slip of paper. The message read: “There is a Communication awaiting Thomas Blaine at the Spiritual Switchboard, 23rd Street Branch. Hours, nine to five.”

“I wonder how anybody knew where I was?” Blaine asked.

“Spirits got their ways,” the clerk told him. “Man I know, his dead mother-in-law tracked him down through three aliases, a Transplant and a complete skin job. He was hiding from her in Abyssinia.”

“I don't have any dead mother-in-law,” Blaine said.

“No? Who you figure's trying to reach you?” the clerk asked.

“I'll find out tomorrow and let you know,” Blaine said. But his sarcasm was wasted. The clerk had already turned back to his correspondence course on Atomic Engine Maintenance. Blaine went up to his room.

13

The 23rd Street Branch of the Spiritual Switchboard was a large graystone building near Third Avenue. Engraved above the door was the statement: “Dedicated to Free Communication Between Those on Earth and Those Beyond.”

Blaine entered the building and studied the directory. It gave floor and room numbers for Messages Incoming, Messages Outgoing, Translations, Abjurations, Exorcisms, Offerings, Pleas, and Exhortations. He wasn't sure which classification he fell under, or what the classifications signified, or even the purpose of the Spiritual Switchboard. He took his slip of paper to the information booth.

“That's Messages Incoming,” a pleasant, grey-haired, receptionist told him. “Straight down the hall to room 32A.”

“Thank you.” Blaine hesitated, then said, “Could you explain something to me?”

“Certainly,” the woman said. “What do you wish to know?”

“Well — I hope this doesn't sound too foolish — what is all this?”

The grey-haired woman smiled. “That's a difficult question to answer. In a philosophical sense I suppose you might call the Spiritual Switchboard a move toward greater oneness, an attempt to discard the dualism of mind and body and substitute —”

“No,” Blaine said. “I mean literally.”

“Literally? Why, the Spiritual Switchboard is a privately endowed, tax-free organization, chartered to act as a clearing house and center for communications to and from the Threshold plane of the Hereafter. In some cases, of course, people don't need our aid and can communicate directly with their departed ones. But more often, there is a need for amplification. This center possesses the proper equipment to make the deceased audible to our ears. And we perform other services, such as abjurations, exorcisms, exhortations and the like, which become necessary from time to time when flesh interacts with spirit.”

She smiled warmly at him. “Does that make it any clearer?”

“Thank you very much,” Blaine said, and went down the hall to room 32A.

It was a small grey room with several armchairs and a loudspeaker set in the wall. Blaine sat down, wondering what was going to happen.

“Tom Blaine!” cried a disembodied voice from the loudspeaker.

“Huh? What?” Blaine asked, jumping to his feet and moving toward the door.

“Tom! How are you, boy?”

Blaine, his hand on the doorknob, suddenly recognized the voice. “Ray Melhill?”

“Right! I'm up there where the rich folks go when they die! Pretty good, huh?”

“That's the understatement of the age,” Blaine said. ‘“But Ray, how? I thought you didn't have any hereafter insurance.”

“I didn't. Let me tell you the whole story. They came for me maybe an hour after they took you. I was so damned angry I thought I'd go out of my mind. I stayed angry right through the chloroforming, right through the wiping. I was still angry when I died.”

“What was dying like?” Blaine asked.

“It was like exploding. I could feel myself scattering all over the place, growing big as the galaxy, bursting into fragments, and the fragments bursting into smaller fragments, and all of them were me.”

“And what happened?”

“I don't know. Maybe being so angry helped. I was stretched as far as I could go — any further and it wouldn't be me — and then I just simply came back together again. Some people do. Like I told you, a few out of every million have always survived without hereafter training. I was one of the lucky ones.”

“I guess you know about me,” Blaine said. “I tried to do something for you, but you'd already been sold.”

“I know,” Melhill said. “Thanks anyhow, Tom. And say, thanks for popping that slob. The one wearing my body.”

“You saw that?”

“I been keeping my eyes open,” Melhill said. “By the way, I like that Marie. Nice looking kid.”

“Thanks. Ray, what's the hereafter like?”

“I don't know.”

“You don't?”

“I'm not in the hereafter yet, Tom. I'm in the Threshold. It's a preparatory stage, a sort of bridge between Earth and the hereafter. It's hard to describe. A sort of greyness, with Earth on one side and the hereafter on the other.”

“Why don't you cross over?” Blaine asked.

“Not yet,” Melhill said. “It's a one-way street into the hereafter. Once you cross over, you can't come back. There's no more contact with Earth.”

Blaine thought about that for a moment, then asked, “When are you going to cross over, Ray?”

“I don't rightly know. I thought I'd stay in Threshold for a while and keep an eye on things.”

“Keep an eye on me, you mean.”

“Well…”

“Thanks a lot, Ray, but don't do it. Go into the hereafter. I can take care of myself.”

“Sure you can,” Melhill said. “But I think I'll stick around for a while anyhow. You'd do it for me, wouldn't you? So don't argue. Now look, I suppose you know you’re in trouble?”

Blaine nodded, “You mean the zombie?”

“I don't know who he is or what he wants from you, Tom, but it can't be good. You'd better be a long way off when he finds out. But that wasn't the trouble I meant.”

“You mean I have more?”

“Afraid so. You’re going to be haunted, Tom.”

In spite of himself, Blaine laughed.

“What's so funny?” Melhill asked indignantly. “You think it's a joke to be haunted?”

“I suppose not. But is it really so serious?”

“Lord, you’re ignorant,” Melhill said. “Do you know anything about ghosts? How they’re made and what they want?”

“Tell me.”

“Well, there are three possibilities when a man dies. First, his mind can just explode, scatter, dissipate; and that's the end of him. Second, his mind can hold together through the death trauma; and he finds himself in the Threshold, a spirit. I guess you know about those two.”

“Go on,” Blaine said.

“The third possibility is this: His mind breaks during the death trauma, but not enough to cause dissipation. He pulls through into the Threshold. But the strain has been permanently disabling. He's insane. And that, my friend, is how a ghost is born.”

“Hmm,” Blaine said. “So a ghost is a mind that went insane during the death trauma?”

“Right. He's insane, and he haunts.”

“But why?”

“Ghosts haunt,” Melhill said, “because they’re filled with twisted hatred, anger, fear and pain. They won't go into the hereafter. They want to spend as much time as they can on Earth, where their attention is still fixed. They want to frighten people, hurt them, drive them insane. Haunting is the most asocial thing they can do, it's their madness. Look Tom, since the beginning of mankind…”

Since the beginning of mankind there have been ghosts, but their numbers have always been small. Only a few out of every million people managed to survive after death; and only a tiny percentage of those survivors went insane during the transition, and became ghosts.

But the impact of those few was colossal upon a mankind fascinated by death, awed by the cold uncaring mobility of the corpse so recently quick and vital, shocked at the ghastly inapropos humor of the skeleton. Death's elaborate, mysterious figure seemed infinitely meaningful, its warning finger pointed toward the spirit-laden skies. So for every genuine ghost, rumor and fear produced a thousand. Every gibbering bat became a ghost. Marsh-fires, flapping curtains and swaying trees became ghosts, and St. Elmo's fire, great-eyed owls, rats in the walls, foxes in the bush, all became ghostly evidence. Folklore grew and produced witch and warlock, evil little familiars, demons and devils, succubi and incubi, werewolf and vampire. For every ghost a thousand were suspected, and for every supernatural fact a million were assumed.

Early scientific investigators entered this maze, trying to discover the truth about supernatural phenomena. They uncovered countless frauds, hallucinations and errors of judgment. And they found a few genuinely inexplicable events, which, though interesting, were statistically insignificant.

The whole tradition of folklore came tumbling down. Statistically there were no ghosts. But continually there was a sly, elusive something which refused to stand still and be classified. It was ignored for centuries, the occasional something which gave a basis and a reality to tales of incubi and succubi. Until at last scientific theory caught up with folklore, made a place for it in the realm of indisputable phenomena, and gave it respectability.

With the discovery of the scientific hereafter, the irrational ghost became understandable as a demented mind inhabiting the misty interface between Earth and the hereafter. The forms of ghostly madness could be categorized like madness on Earth. There were the melancholies, drifting disconsolately through the scenes of their great passion; the whispering hebephrenic, chattering gay and random nonsense; the idiots and imbeciles who returned in the guise of little children; the schizophrenics who imagined themselves to be animals, prototypes of vampire and Abominable Snowman, werewolf, weretiger, werefox, weredog. There were the destructive stone-throwing and fire-setting ghosts, the poltergeists, and the grandiloquent paranoids who imagined themselves to be Lucifer or Beelzebub, Israfael or Azazael, the Spirit of Christmas Past, the Furies, Divine Justice, or even Death itself.

Haunting was madness. They wept by the old watch tower, these few ghosts upon whose gossamer shoulders rested the entire great structure of folklore, mingled with the mists around the gibbet, jabbered their nonsense at the seance. They talked, cried, danced and sang for the delectation of the credulous, until scientific observers came with their sober cold questions. Then they fled back to the Threshold, terrified of this onslaught of reason, protective of their delusions, fearful of being cured.

“So that's how it was,” Melhill said. “You can figure out the rest. Since Hereafter, Inc. a hell of a lot more people are surviving after death. But of course a lot more are going insane on the way.”

“Thus producing a lot more ghosts,” Blaine said.

“Right. One of them is after you,” Melhill said, his voice growing faint. “So watch your step. Tom, I gotta go now.”

“What kind of ghost is it?” Blaine asked. “Whose ghost? And why do you have to go?”

“It takes energy to stay on Earth,” Melhill whispered. “I'm just about used up. Have to recharge. Can you still hear me?”

“Yes, go on.”

“I don't know when the ghost will show himself, Tom. And I don't know who he is. I asked, but he wouldn't tell me. Just watch out for him.”

“I'll watch out,” Blaine said, his ear pressed to the loudspeaker. “Ray! Will I speak to you again?”

“I think so,” Melhill said, his voice barely audible. “Tom, I know you’re looking for a job. Try Ed Franchel, 322 West 19th Street. It's rough stuff, but it pays. And watch yourself.”

“Ray!” Blaine shouted. “What kind of a ghost is it?”

There was no answer. The loudspeaker was silent, and he was alone in the grey room.

14

322 West 19th Street, the address Ray Melhill had given him, was a small, dilapidated brownstone near the docks. Blaine climbed the steps and pressed the ground-floor buzzer marked Edward J. Franchel Enterprises. The door was opened by a large, balding man in shirtsleeves.

“Mr. Franchel?” Blaine asked.

“That's me,” the balding man said, with a resolutely cheerful smile. “Right this way, sir.”

He led Blaine into an apartment pungent with the odor of boiled cabbage. The front half of the apartment was arranged as an office, with a paper-cluttered desk, a dusty filing cabinet and several stiff-backed chairs. Past it, Blaine could see a gloomy living room. From the inner recesses of the apartment a solido was blaring out a daytime show.

“Please excuse the appearance,” Franchel said, motioning Blaine to a chair. “I'm moving into a regular office uptown just as soon as I find time. The orders have been coming in so fast and furious… Now sir, what can I do for you?”

“I'm looking for a job,” Blaine said.

“Hell,” said Franchel, “I thought you were a customer.” He turned in the direction of the blaring solido and shouted, “Alice, will you turn that goddamned thing down?” He waited until the volume had receded somewhat, then turned back to Blaine. “Brother, if business doesn't pick up soon I'm going back to running a suicide booth at Coney. A job, huh?”

“That's right. Ray Melhill told me to try you.”

Franchel's expression brightened. “How's Ray doing?”

“He's dead.”

“Shame,” Franchel said. “He was a good lad, though always a bit wild. He worked for me a couple times when the space pilots were on strike. Want a drink?”

Blaine nodded, Franchel went to the filing cabinet and removed a bottle of rye whiskey labelled “Moonjuice.” He found two shot glasses and filled them with a practiced flourish.

“Here's to old Ray,” Franchel said. “I suppose he got himself boxed?”

“Boxed and crated,” Blaine said. “I just spoke to him at the Spiritual Switchboard.”

“Then he made Threshold!” Franchel said admiringly. “Friend, we should only have his luck. So you want a job? Well, maybe I can fix it. Stand up.”

He walked around Blaine, touched his biceps and ran a hand over his ridged shoulder muscles. He stood in front of Blaine, nodding to himself with downcast eyes, then feinted a quick blow at his face. Blaine's right hand came up instantly, in time to block the punch.

“Good build, good reflexes,” Franchel said. “I think you'll do. Know anything about weapons?”

“Not much,” Blaine said, wondering what kind of job he was getting into. “Just — ah — antiques. Garands, Winchesters, Colts.”

“No kidding?” Franchel said. “You know, I always wanted to collect antique recoil arms. But no projectile or beam weapons are allowed on this hunt. What else you got?”

“I can handle a rifle with bayonet,” Blaine said, thinking how his basic-training sergeant would have roared at that overstatement.

“You can? Lunges and parries and all? Well I'll be damned, I thought bayonetry was a lost art. You’re the first I've seen in fifteen years. Friend, you’re hired.”

Franchel went to his desk, scribbled on a piece of paper and handed it to Blaine.

“You go to that address tomorrow for your briefing. You'll be paid standard hunter's salary, two hundred dollars plus fifty a day for every working day. Have you got your own weapons and equipment? Well, I'll pick the stuff up for you, but it's deducted from your pay. And I take ten percent off the top. OK?”

“Sure,” Blaine said. “Could you explain a little more about the hunt?”

“Nothing to explain. It's just a standard hunt. But don't go around talking about it. I'm not sure if hunts are still legal. I wish Congress would straighten out the Suicide and Permitted Murder Acts once and for all. A man doesn't know where he's at any more.”

“Yeah,” Blaine agreed.

“They'll probably discuss the legal aspects at the briefing,” Franchel said. “The hunters will be there, and the Quarry will tell you all you need to know. Say hello to Ray for me if you speak to him again. Tell him I'm sorry he got killed.”

“I'll tell him,” Blaine said. He decided not to ask any more questions for fear his ignorance might cost him the job. Whatever hunting involved, he and his body could surely handle it. And a job, any job, was as necessary now for his self-respect as for his dwindling wallet.

He thanked Franchel and left.

That evening he ate dinner in an inexpensive diner, and bought several magazines. He was elated at the knowledge of having found work, and sure that he was going to make a place for himself in this age.

His high spirits were dampened slightly when he glimpsed, on the way back to his hotel, a man standing in an alley watching him. The man had a white face and placid Buddha eyes, and his rough clothes hung on him like rags on a scarecrow.

It was the zombie.

Blaine hurried on to his hotel, refusing to anticipate trouble. After all, if a cat can look at a king, a zombie can look at a man, and where's the harm?

This reasoning didn't prevent him from having nightmares until dawn.

Early the next day, Blaine walked to 42nd Street and Park Avenue, to catch a bus to the briefing. While waiting, he noticed a disturbance on the other side of 42nd Street.

A man had stopped short in the middle of the busy pavement. He was laughing to himself, and people were beginning to edge away from him. He as in his fifties, Blaine judged, dressed in quiet tweeds, bespectacled, and a little overweight. He carried a small briefcase and looked like ten million other businessmen.

Abruptly he stopped laughing. He unzipped his briefcase and removed from it two long, slightly curved daggers. He flung the briefcase away, and followed it with his glasses.

“Berserker!” someone cried.

The man plunged into the crowd, both daggers flashing. People started screaming, and the crowd scattered before him.

“Berserker, berserker!”

“Call the flathats!”

“Watch out, berserker!”

One man was down, clutching his torn shoulder and swearing. The berserker's face was fiery red now, and spittle came from his mouth. He waded deeper into the dense crowd, and people knocked each other down in their efforts to escape. A woman shrieked as she was pushed off balance, and her armload of parcels scattered across the pavement.

The berserker swiped at her left-handed, missed, and plunged deeper into the crowd.

Blue-uniformed police appeared, six or eight of them, sidearms out. “Everybody down!” they shouted. “Flatten! Everybody down!”

All traffic had stopped. The people in the berserker's path flung themselves to the pavement. On Blaine's side of the street, people were also getting down.

A freckled girl of perhaps twelve tugged at Blaine's arm, “Come on, Mister, get down! You wanna get beamed?”

Blaine lay down beside her. The berserker had turned and was running back toward the policemen, screaming wordlessly and waving his knives.

Three of the policemen fired at once, their weapons throwing a pale yellowish beam which flared red when it struck the berserker. He screamed as his clothing began to smoulder, turned, and tried to escape.

A beam caught him square in the back. He flung both knives at the policemen and collapsed.

An ambulance dropped down with whirring blades and quickly loaded the berserker and his victims. The policemen began breaking up the crowd that had gathered around them.

“All right, folks, it's all over now. Move along!”

The crowd began to disperse. Blaine stood up and brushed himself off. “What was that?” he asked.

“It was a berserker, silly,” the freckled girl said. “Couldn't you see?”

“I saw. Do you have many?”

She nodded proudly. “New. York has more berserkers than any other city in the world except Manila where they’re called amokers. But it's all the same thing. We have maybe fifty a year.”

“More,” a man said. “Maybe seventy, eighty a year. But this one didn't do so good.”

A small group had gathered near Blaine and the girl. They were discussing the berserker much as Blaine had heard strangers in his own time discuss an automobile accident.

“How many did he get?”

“Only five, and I don't think he killed any of them.”

“His heart wasn't in it,” an old woman said. “When I was a girl you couldn't stop them as easily as that. Strong they were.”

“Well, he picked a bad spot,” the freckled girl said, “42nd Street is filled with flathats. A berserker can't hardly get started before he's beamed.”

A big policeman came over. “All right, folks, break it up. The fun's over, move along now.”

The group dispersed. Blaine caught his bus, wondering why fifty or more people chose to berserk in New York every year. Sheer nervous tension? A demented form of individualism? Adult delinquency?

It was one more of the things he would have to find out about the world of 2110.

15

The address was a penthouse high above Park Avenue in the Seventies. A butler admitted him to a spacious room where chairs had been set up in a long row. The dozen men occupying the chairs were a loud, tough, weatherbeaten bunch, carelessly dressed and ill at ease in such rarefied surroundings. Most of them knew each other.

“Hey, Otto! Back in the hunting game?”

“Yah. No money.”

“Knew you'd come back, old boy. Hi, Tim!”

“Hi, Bjorn. This is my last hunt.”

“Sure it is. Last ‘til next time.”

“No, I mean it. I'm buying a seed-pressure farm in the North Atlantic Abyss. I just need a stake.”

“You'll drink up your stake.”

“Not this time.”

“Hey, Theseus! How's the throwing arm?”

“Good enough, Chico. Que tal?”

“Not too bad, kid.”

“There's Sammy Jones, always last in.”

“I'm on time, ain't I?”

“Ten minutes late. Where's your sidekick?”

“Sligo? Dead. That Asturias hunt.”

“Tough. Hereafter?”

“Not likely.”

A man entered the room and called out, “Gentlemen, your attention please!”

He advanced to the center of the room and stood, hands on his hips, facing the row of hunters. He was a slender sinewy man of medium height, dressed in riding breeches and an open-necked shirt. He had a small, carefully tended moustache and startling blue eyes in a thin, tanned face. For a few seconds he looked the hunters over, while they coughed and shifted their feet uncomfortably.

At last he said, “Good morning, gentlemen. I am Charles Hull, your employer and Quarry.” He gave them a smile of no warmth. “First, gentlemen, a word concerning the legality of our proceedings. There has been some recent confusion about this. My lawyer has looked into the matter fully, and will explain. Mr. Jensen!”

A small, nervous-looking man came into the room, pressed his spectacles firmly against his nose and cleared his throat.

“Yes, Mr. Hull. Gentlemen, as to the present legality of the hunt: In accordance with the revised statutes to the Suicide Act of 2102, any man protected by Hereafter insurance has the right to select any death for himself, at any time and place, and by any means, as long as those means do not constitute cruel and unnatural abuse. The reason for this fundamental ‘right to die’ is obvious: The courts do not recognize physical death as death per se, if said death does not involve the destruction of mind. Providing the mind survives, the death of the body is of no more moment, legally, than the sloughing of a fingernail. The body, by the latest Supreme Court decision, is considered an appendage of the mind, its creature, to be disposed of as the mind directs.”

During this explanation Hull had been pacing the room with quick, catlike steps. He stopped now and said, “Thank you, Mr. Jensen. So there is no questioning my right to suicide. Nor is there any illegality in my selecting one or more persons such as yourselves to perform the act for me. And your own actions are considered legal under the Permitted Murder section of the Suicide Act. All well and good. The only legal question arises in a recent appendage to the Suicide Act.”

He nodded to Mr. Jensen.

“The appendage states,” Jensen said, “that a man can select any death for himself, at any time and place, by any means, etcetera, so long as that death is not physically injurious to others.”

“That,” said Hull, “is the troublesome clause. Now, a hunt is a legal form of suicide. A time and place is arranged. You, the hunters, chase me. I, the Quarry, flee. You catch me, kill me. Fine! Except for one thing.”

He turned to the lawyer. “Mr. Jensen, you may leave the room. I do not wish to implicate you.”

After the lawyer had left, Hull said, “The one problem remaining is, of course, the fact that I will be armed and trying my very best to kill you. Any of you. All of you. And that is illegal.”

Hull sank gracefully into a chair. “The crime, however, is mine, not yours. I have employed you to kill me. You have no idea that I plan to protect myself, to retaliate. That is a legal fiction, but one which will save you from becoming possible accessories to the fact. If I am caught trying to kill one of you, the penalty will be severe. But I will not be caught. One of you will kill me, thus putting me beyond the reach of human justice. If I should be so unfortunate as to kill all of you, I shall complete my suicide in the old-fashioned manner, with poison. But that would be a disappointment to me. I trust you will not be so clumsy as to let that happen. Any questions?”

The hunters were murmuring among, themselves:

“Slick fancy-talking bastard.”

“Forget it, all Quarries talk like that.”

“Thinks he's better than us, him and his classy legal talk.”

“We'll see how good he talks with a bit of steel through him.”

Hull smiled coldly. “Excellent. I believe the situation is clear. Now, if you please, tell me what your weapons are.”

One by one the hunters answered:

“Mace.”

“Net and Trident.”

“Spear.”

“Morning star.”

“Bola.”

“Scimitar.”

“Bayonetted rifle,” Blaine said when his turn came.

“Broadsword.”

“Battle-axe.”

“Saber.”

“Thank you, gentlemen,” Hull said. “I will be armed with a rapier, naturally, and no armor. Our meeting will take place Sunday, at dawn, on my estate. The butler will give each of you a paper containing full instructions on how to get there. Let the bayonet man remain. Good morning to the rest of you.”

The hunters left. Hull said, “Bayonetry is an unusual art. Where did you learn it?”

Blaine hesitated, then said, “In the army, 1943 to 1945.”

“You’re from the past?”

Blaine nodded.

“Interesting,” Hull said, with no particular sign of interest. “Then this, I daresay, is your first hunt?”

“It is.”

“You appear a person of some intelligence. I suppose you have your reasons for choosing so hazardous and disreputable an employment?”

“I'm low on funds,” Blaine said, “and I can't find anything else to do.”

“Of course,” Hull said, as though he had known it all along. “So you turned to hunting. Yet hunting is not a thing merely to turn to; and hunting the beast Man is not for everyone. The trade calls for certain special abilities, not the least of which is the ability to kill. Do you think you have the innate talent?”

“I believe so,” Blaine said, though he hadn't considered the question until now.

“I wonder,” Hull mused. “In spite of your bellicose appearance, you don't seem the type. What if you find yourself incapable of killing me? What if you hesitate at the crucial moment when steel grates on steel?”

“I'll chance it,” Blaine said.

Hull nodded agreeably. “And so will I. Perhaps, hidden deep within you, a spark of murder burns. Perhaps not. This doubt will add spice to the game — though you may not have time to savour it.”

“That's my worry,” Blaine said, feeling an intense dislike for his elegant and rhetorical employer. “Might I ask you a question?”

“Consider me at your service.”

“Thank you. Why do you wish to die?”

Hull stared at him, then burst into laughter. “Now I know you’re from the past! What a question!”

“Can you answer it?”

“Of course,” Hull said. He leaned back in his chair, and his eyes took on the dreamy look of a man forming rhetoric.

“I am forty-three years old, and weary of nights and days. I am wealthy man, and an uninhibited one. I have experimented, contrived, laughed, wept, loved, hated, tasted and drunk — my fill. I have sampled all Earth has to offer me, and I choose not to tediously repeat the experience. When I was young, I pictured this excellent green planet revolving mysteriously around its flamboyant yellow luminary as a treasure-trove, a brass box of delights inexhaustible in content and immeasurable in their effect upon my ever-eager desires. But now, sadly, I have lived longer and have witnessed sensation's end. And now I see with what bourgeois complacency our fat round Earth circles, at wary distance and unvarying pace, its gaudy dreaded star. And the imagined treasure chest of the Earth seems now a child's painted toy box, shallow in its contents and mediocre in its effect upon nerves too quickly deadened to all delight.”

Hull glanced at Blaine to note the effect of his words, and then went on.

“Boredom stretches before me now like a vast, arid plain — and I choose not to be bored. I choose, instead, to move on, move forward, move out; to sample Earth's last and greatest adventure — the adventure of Death, gateway to the afterlife. Can you understand that?”

“Of course,” Blaine said, irritated yet impressed by Hull's theatrics. “But what's the rush? Life might have some good things still in store for you. And death is inevitable. Why rush it?”

“Spoken like a true 20th Century optimist,” Hull said, laughing. “ ‘Life is real, life is earnest…’ In your day, one had to believe that life was real and earnest. What alternative was there? How many of you really believed in a life after death?”

“That doesn't alter the validity of my point,” Blaine said, hating the stodgy, cautious, reasonable position he was forced to assume.

“But it does! The perspective on life and death has changed now. Instead of Longfellow's prosy advice, we follow Nietzsche's dictum — to die at the right time! Intelligent people don't clutch at the last shreds of life like drowning men clinging to a bit of board. They know that the body's life is only an infinitesimal portion of man's total existence. Why shouldn't they speed the body's passing by a few years if they so desire? Why shouldn't those bright pupils skip a grade or two of school? Only the frightened, the stupid, the uneducated grasp at every possible monotonous second on Earth.”

“The frightened, stupid and uneducated,” Blaine repeated. “And the unfortunates who can't afford Hereafter insurance.”

“Wealth and class have their privileges,” Hull said, smiling faintly, “and their obligations as well. One of those obligations is the necessity of dying at the right time, before one becomes a bore to one's peers and a horror to oneself. But the deed of dying transcends class and breeding. It is every man's patent of nobility, his summons from the king, his knightly adventure, the greatest deed of his life. And how he acquits himself in that lonely and perilous enterprise is his true measure as a man.”

Hull's blue eyes were fierce and glittering. He said, “I do not wish to experience this crucial event in bed. I do not wish a dull, tame, commonplace death to sneak over me disguised as sleep. I choose to die — fighting!”

Blaine nodded in spite of himself and felt regret at his own prosaic death. A car accident! How dull, tame, and commonplace! And how strange, dark, atavistic and noble seemed Hull's lordly selection of death. Pretentious, of course; but then, life itself was a pretension in the vast universe of unliving matter. Hull was like an ancient Japanese nobleman calmly kneeling to perform the ceremonial act of hara-kiri and emphasizing the importance of life in the very selection of death. But hara-kiri was a passive Eastern avowal; while Hull's manner of dying was a Western death, fierce, violent, exultant.

It was admirable. But intensely irritating to a man not yet prepared to die.

Blaine said, “I have nothing against you or any other man choosing his death. But what about the hunters you plan to kill? They haven't chosen to die, and they won't survive in the hereafter.”

Hull shrugged his shoulders. “They choose to live dangerously. In Nietzsche's phrase, they prefer to run risk and danger, and play dice with death. Blaine, have you changed your mind?”

“No.”

“Then we will meet Sunday.”

Blaine went to the door and took his paper of instructions from the butler. As he was leaving, he said, “I wonder if you've considered one last thing.”

“What is that?” Hull asked.

“You must have thought of it,” Blaine said. “The possibility that this whole elaborate setup — the scientific hereafter, voices of the dead, ghosts — are merely a gigantic hoax, a money-making fraud perpetrated by Hereafter, Inc.”

Hull stood perfectly still. When he spoke there was a hint or anger in his voice. “That is quite impossible. Only a very uneducated man could think such a thing.”

“Maybe,” Blaine said. “But wouldn't you look silly if it were a hoax! Good morning, Mr. Hull.”

He left, glad to have shaken up that smooth, smug, fancy, rhetorical bastard even for a moment — and sad that his own death had been so dull, tame, and commonplace.

16

The following day, Saturday, Blaine went to Franchel's apartment for his rifle, bayonet, hunter's uniform and pack. He was given half his salary in advance, less ten percent and the cost of the equipment. The money was very welcome, for he had been down to three dollars and change.

He went to the Spiritual Switchboard, but Melhill had left no further messages for him. He returned to his hotel room and spent the afternoon practicing lunges and parries.

That evening Blaine found himself tense and despondent, and nervous at the thought of the hunt beginning in the morning. He went to a small West Side cocktail lounge that had been designed to resemble a 20th Century bar, with a dark gleaming bar, wooden stools, booths, a brass rail, and sawdust on the floor. He slid into a booth and ordered beer. The classic neon lights glowed softly, and a genuine antique juke box played the sentimental tunes of Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman. Blaine sat, hunched over his glass of beer, drearily asking himself who and what he was.

Was it truly he taking casual employment as a hunter and killer of men?

Then what happened to Tom Blaine, the former designer of sailboats, former listener to high-fidelity music, former reader of fine books, former viewer of good plays? What happened to that quiet, sardonic, non-aggressive man?

Surely that man, housed in his slender, nervous, unassuming body, would never choose to kill!

Would he?

Was that familiar and regretted Blaine defeated and smothered by the large, square-muscled, quick-reflexed fighter's body he had acquired? And was that body, with its own peculiar glandular secretions dripping into the dark bloodstream, its own distinct and configurated brain, its own system of nerves and signals and responses — was that domineering body responsible for everything, dragging its helpless owner into murderous violence?

Blaine rubbed his eyes and told himself that he was dreaming nonsense. The truth simply was: He had died through circumstances beyond his control, been reborn in the future, and found himself unemployable except as a hunter. Q.E.D.

But that rational explanation didn't satisfy him, and he no longer had time to search out the slippery and elusive truth.

He was no longer a detached observer of 2110. He had become a biased participant, an actor instead of an onlooker, with all of an actor's thoughtless sweep and rush. Action was irresistible, it generated its own momentary truth. The brakes were off, and the engine Blaine was rolling down the steep hill Life, gathering momentum but no moss. Perhaps this, now, was his last chance for a look, a summing up, a measured choice…

But it was already too late, for a man slid into the booth opposite him like a shadow across the world. And Blaine was looking into the white and impassive face of the zombie.

“Good evening,” the zombie said.

“Good evening,” Blaine said steadily. “Would you care for a drink?”

“No, thank you. My system doesn't respond to stimulation.”

“Sorry to hear it,” Blaine said.

The zombie shrugged his shoulders. “I have a name now,” he said. “I decided to call myself Smith, until I remember my real name. Smith. Do you like it?”

“It's a fine name,” Blaine said.

“Thank you. I went to a doctor,” Smith said. “He told me my body's no good. No stamina, no recuperative powers.”

“Can't you be helped?”

Smith shook his head. “The body's definitely zombie. I occupied it much too late. The doctor gives me another few months at most.”

“Too bad,” Blaine said, feeling nausea rise in his throat at the sight of that sullen, thick-featured, leaden-skinned face with its unharmonious features and patient Buddha's eyes. Smith sat, slack and unnatural in rough workman's clothes, his black-dotted white face close-shaven and smelling of strong lotion. But he had changed. Already Blaine could see a certain leathery dryness in the once-pliant skin, certain striations in the flesh around the eyes, nose and mouth, minute creases in the forehead like tool-marks in old leather. And, mingled with the heavy after-shaving lotion, Blaine thought he could sense the first faint odor of dissolution.

“What do you want with me?” Blaine asked.

“I don't know.”

“Then leave me alone.”

“I can't do that,” Smith said apologetically.

“Do you want to kill me?” Blaine asked, his throat dry.

“I don't know! I can't remember! Kill you, protect you, maim you, love you — I don't know yet! But I'll remember soon, Blaine, I promise!”

“Leave me alone,” Blaine said, his muscles tensing.

“I can't,” Smith said. “Don't you understand? I know nothing except you. Literally nothing! I don't know this world or any other, no person, face, mind or memory. You’re my only landmark, the center of my existence, my only reason for living.”

“Stop it!”

“But it's true! Do you think I enjoy dragging this structure of flesh through the streets? What good is life with no hope before me and no memory behind me? Death is better! Life means filthy decaying flesh, and death is pure spirit! I've thought about it, dreamed about it, beautiful fleshless death! But one thing stops me. I have you, Blaine, to keep me going!”

“Get out of here,” Blaine said, nausea bitter in his mouth.

“You, my sun and moon, my stars, my Earth, my total universe, my life, my reason, my friend, enemy, lover, murderer, wife, father, child, husband —”

Blaine's fist shot out, striking Smith high on the cheekbone. The zombie was flung back in the booth. His expression did not change, but a great purple bruise appeared on his lead-colored cheekbone.

“Your mark!” Smith murmured.

Blame's fist, poised for another blow, dropped.

Smith stood up. “I'm going. Take care of yourself, Blaine. Don't die yet! I need you. Soon I'll remember, and I'll come to you.”

Smith, his sullen, slack, bruised face impassive, left the bar.

Blaine ordered a double whiskey and sat for a long time over it, trying to still the shaking in his hands.

17

Blaine arrived at the Hull estate by rural jet-bus, an hour before dawn. He was dressed in a traditional hunter's uniform — khaki shirt and slacks, rubber-soled shoes and wide-brimmed hat. Slung over one shoulder was his field pack; over the other he carried his rifle and bayonet in a plastic bag.

A servant met him at the outer gate and led him to the low, rambling mansion. Blaine learned that the Hull estate consisted of ninety wooded acres in the Adirondack Mountains between Keene and Elizabethtown. Here, the servant told him, Hull's father had suicided at the age of fifty-one, taking the lives of six hunters with him before a saber man slashed his head off. Glorious death! Hull's uncle, on the other hand, had chosen to berserk in San Francisco, a city he had always loved. The police had to beam him twelve times before he dropped., and he took seven bystanders with him.

The newspapers made much of the exploit, and accounts of it were preserved in the family scrapbook.

It just went to show, the garrulous old retainer pointed out, the difference in temperaments. Some, like the uncle, were friendly, fun-loving men who wanted to die in a crowd, attracting a certain amount of attention. Others, like the present Mr. Hull, were more given to the love of solitude and nature.

Blaine nodded politely to all this and was taken to a large, rustic room where the hunters were assembled, drinking coffee and honing a last razor edge to their weapons. Light flashed from the blued-steel broadsword and silvery battle-axe, wavered along the polished spearhead and glinted frostily from the diamond-points of the mace and morning star. At first glance, Blaine thought it looked like a scene from medieval times. But on second thought he decided it was more like a movie set.

“Pull up a chair, pal,” the axeman called. “Welcome to the Benevolent Protective Society of Butchers, Slaughterhouse Men, and Killers-at-Large. I'm Sammy Jones, finest axeman in the Americas and probably Europe, too.”

Blaine sat down and was introduced to the other hunters. They represented half a dozen nationalities, although English was their common tongue.

Sammy Jones was a squat, black-haired, bull-shouldered man, dressed in patched and faded khakis, with several old hunting scars across his craggy, thick-browed face.

“First hunt?” he asked, glancing at Blaine's neatly pressed khakis.

Blaine nodded, removed his rifle from its plastic bag and fitted the bayonet to its end. He tested the locking mechanism, tightened the rifle's strap, and removed the bayonet again.

“Can you really use that thing?” Jones asked.

“Sure,” Blaine said, more confidently than he felt.

“Hope so. Guys like Hull have a nose for the weak sisters. They try to cut ‘em out of the pack early.”

“How long does a hunt usually last?” Blaine asked.

“Well,” Jones said, “longest I was ever on took eight days. That was Asturias, where my partner Sligo got his. Generally a good pack can pin down a Quarry in a day or two. Depends on how he wants to die. Some try to hang on as long as they can. They run to cover. They hide in caves and ravines, the dirty treacherous dogs, and you have to go in for them and chance a thrust in the face. That's how Sligo got it. But I don't think Hull's that way. He wants to die like a great big fire-eating he-man hero. So he'll stalk around and take chances, looking to see how many of us he can knock off with his pigsticker.”

“You sound as if you don't approve,” Blaine said.

Sammy Jones raised his busy eyebrows. “I don't hold with making a big fuss about dying. Here comes the hero himself.”

Hull entered the room, lean and elegant in khaki-colored silk, with a white silk bandanna knotted loosely around his neck. He carried a light pack, and strapped to one shoulder was a thin, wicked-looking rapier.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” he said. “Weapons all honed, packs straight, shoelaces firmly tied? Excellent!”

Hull walked to a window and drew the curtains aside.

“Behold the first crack of dawn, a glorious streak in our eastern skies, harbinger of our fierce Lord Sun who rules the chase. I shall leave now. A servant will inform you when my half hour grace is done. Then you may pursue, and kill me upon sight. If you are able! The estate is fenced. I will remain within its confines, and so shall you.”

Hull bowed, then walked quickly and gracefully out of the room.

“God, I hate these fancy birds!” Sammy Jones shouted, after the door was closed. “They’re all alike, every one of them. Acting so cool and casual, so goddamned heroic. If they only knew how bloody silly I think they are — me that's been on twenty-eight of these things.”

“Why do you hunt?” Blaine asked.

Sammy Jones shrugged. “My father was an axeman, and he taught me the business. It's the only thing I know.”

“You could learn a different trade,” Blaine said.

“I suppose I could. The fact is, I like killing these aristocratic gentlemen. I hate every rich bastard among them with their lousy hereafter a poor man can't afford. I take pleasure in killing them, and if I had money I'd pay for the privilege.”

“And Hull enjoys killing poor men like you,” Blaine said. “It's a sad world.”

“No, just an honest one,” Sammy Jones told him. “Stand up, I'll fasten your pack on right.”

When that was done, Sammy Jones said, “Look Tom, why don't you and me stick together on this hunt? Mutual protection, like?”

“My protection, you mean,” Blaine said.

“Nothing to be ashamed of,” Jones told him. “Every skilled trade must be learned before it can be practiced. And what better man to learn from than myself, the finest of the fine?”

“Thanks,” Blaine said. “I'll try to hold up my end, Sammy.”

“You'll do fine. Now, Hull's a fencer, be sure of it, and fencers have their little tricks which I'll explain as we go along. When he —”

At that moment a servant entered, carrying an old, ornate chronometer. When the second hand passed twelve, he looked sharply at the hunters.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “the time of grace is passed. The chase may begin.”

The hunters trooped outside into the grey, misty dawn. Theseus the tracker, balancing his trident across his shoulders, picked up the trail at once. It led upwards, toward a mist-wreathed mountain.

Spread out in a long single file, the hunters started up the mountain's side.

Soon the early morning sun had burned away the mists. Theseus lost the trail when it crossed bare granite. The hunters spread out in a broken line across the face of the mountain, and continued advancing slowly upward.

At noon, the broadsword man picked a fragment of khaki-colored silk from a thornbush. A few minutes later, Theseus found footprints on moss. They led down, into a narrow thickly wooded valley. Eagerly the hunters pressed forward.

“Here he is!” a man shouted.

Blaine whirled and saw, fifty yards to his right, the man with the morning star running forward. He was the youngest of the hunters, a brawny, self-confident Sicilian. His weapon consisted of a stout handle of ash, fixed to which was a foot of chain. At the end of the chain was a heavy spiked ball, the morning star. He was whirling this weapon over his head and singing at the top of his lungs.

Sammy Jones and Blaine sprinted toward him.

They saw Hull break from the bushes, rapier in hand. The Sicilian leaped forward and swung a blow that could have felled a tree. Hull dodged lightly out of the way, and lunged.

The morning star man gurgled and went down, pierced through the throat. Hull planted a foot on his chest, yanked the rapier free, and vanished again into the underbrush.

“I never could understand why a man'd use a morning star,” Sammy Jones said. “Too clumsy. If you don't hit your man the first lick, you never recover in time.”

The Sicilian was dead. Hull's passage through the underbrush was clearly visible. They plunged in after him, followed by most of the hunters, with flankers ranged on either side. Soon they encountered rock again, and the trail was lost.

All afternoon they searched, with no luck. At sundown they pitched camp on the mountainside, posted guards, and discussed the day's hunting over a small campfire.

“Where do you suppose he is?” Blaine asked.

“He could be anywhere on the damned estate,” Jones said. “Remember, he knows every foot of ground here. We’re seeing it for the first time.”

“Then he could hide from us indefinitely.”

“If he wanted to. But he wants to be killed, remember? In a big, flashy, heroic way. So he'll keep on trying to cut us down until we get him.”

Blaine looked over his shoulder at the dark woods. “He could be standing there now, listening.”

“No doubt he is,” Jones said. “I hope the guards stay awake.”

Conversation droned on in the little camp, and the fire burned low. Blaine wished morning would come. Darkness reversed the roles. The hunters were the hunted now, stalked by a cruel and amoral suicide intent upon taking as many lives with him as possible. With that thought, he dozed off.

Sometime before dawn he was awakened by a scream. Grabbing his rifle, he sprang to his feet and peered into the darkness. There was another scream, closer this time, and the sound of hurried movement through the woods. Then someone threw a handful of leaves on the dying fire.

In the sudden yellow glow, Blaine saw a man staggering back to the camp. It was one of the guards, trailing his spear behind him. He was bleeding in two places, but his wounds didn't appear fatal.

“That bastard,” the spearman sobbed, “that lousy bastard.”

“Take it easy, Chico,” one of the men said, ripping open the spearman's shirt to clean and bandage the wound. “Did you get him?”

“He was too quick,” the spearman moaned. “I missed.”

That was the end of the sleeping for the night.

The hunters were moving again at the first light of dawn, widely scattered, looking for a trace of the Quarry. Theseus found a broken button and then a half-erased footprint. The hunt veered again; winding up a narrow-faced mountain.

At the head of the pack, Otto gave a sudden shout. “Hey! Here! I got him!”

Theseus rushed toward him, followed by Blaine and Jones. They saw Hull backing away, watching intently as Otto advanced swinging the bola around his cropped head. The Argentinian lasso hissed in the air, its three iron balls blurring. Then Otto released it. Instantly Hull flung himself to the ground. The bola snaked through the air inches above his head, wrapped itself around a tree limb and snapped it off. Hull, grinning broadly, ran toward the weaponless man.

Before he could reach him Theseus had arrived, flourishing his trident. They exchanged thrusts. Then Hull whirled and ran.

Theseus lunged. The Quarry howled with pain but continued running.

“Did you wound him?” Jones asked.

“A flesh wound in the rump,” Theseus said. “Probably most painful to his pride.”

The hunters ran on, panting heavily, tip the mountain's side. But they had lost the Quarry again.

They spread out, surrounding the narrowing mountain, and slowly began working their way toward the peak. Occasional noises and footprints told them the Quarry was still before them, retreating upward. As the peak narrowed they were able to close their ranks more, lessening any chance of Hull slipping through.

By late afternoon the pine and spruce trees had become sparse. Above them was a confused labyrinth of granite boulders, and past that the final peak itself.

“Careful now!” Jones called to the hunters.

As he said it, Hull launched an attack. Springing from behind a rock pinnacle, he came at old Bjorn the mace man, his rapier hissing, trying to cut the man down quickly and escape the throttling noose of hunters.

But Bjorn gave ground only slowly, cautiously parrying the rapier thrusts, both hands on his mace as though it were a quarterstaff. Hull swore angrily at the phlegmatic man, attacked furiously, and threw himself aside just in time to avoid a blow of the mace.

Old Bjorn closed — too rapidly. The rapier darted in and out of his chest like a snake's flickering tongue. Bjorn's mace dropped, and his body began rolling down the mountainside.

But the hunters had closed the circle again. Hull retreated upward, into a maze of boulders.

The hunters pressed forward. Blaine noticed that the sun was almost down; already there was a twilight hue to the air, and long shadows stretched across the gray rocks.

“Getting toward evening,” he said to Jones.

“Maybe half an hour more light,” Jones said, squinting at the sky. “We better get him soon. After dark he could pick every man of us off this rock.”

They moved more quickly now, searching among the high boulders.

“He could roll rocks on us,” Blaine said.

“Not him,” Jones said. “He's too damn proud.”

And then Hull stepped from behind a high rock near Blaine.

“All right, rifleman,” he said.

Blaine, his rifle at high port, just managed to parry the thrust. The blade of the rapier rasped along the gun barrel, past his neck. Automatically he deflected it. Something drove him to roar as he lunged, to follow the lunge with an eager disembowelling slash and then a hopeful butt stroke intended to scatter his enemy's brains across the rocks. For that moment, Blaine was no longer a civilized man operating under a painful necessity; he was a more basic creature joyously pursuing his true vocation of murder.

The Quarry avoided his blows with quick silken grace. Blaine stumbled after him, anger sapping his skill. Suddenly he was shoved aside by Sammy Jones.

“Mine,” Jones said. “All mine. I'm your boy, Hull. Try me with the pigsticker.”

Hull, his face expressionless, advanced, his rapier flashing. Jones stood firm on slightly bowed legs, the battleaxe turning lightly in his hands. Hull feinted and lunged. Jones parried so hard that sparks flew, and the rapier bent like a green stick.

The other hunters had come up now. They chose seats on nearby rocks and caught their wind, commenting on the duel and shouting advice.

“Pin him against the cliff, Sammy!”

“No, over the edge with him!”

“Want some help?”

“Hell no!” Jones shouted back.

“Watch out he don't nip a finger, Sammy.”

“Don't worry,” Jones said.

Blaine watched, his rage ebbing as quickly as it had come. He had assumed that a battleaxe would be a clumsy weapon requiring a full backswing for each stroke. But Sammy Jones handled the short, heavy axe as though it were a baton. He took no backswing but let drive from any position, recovering instantly, his implacable weight and drive forcing Hull toward the cliff's sheer edge. There was no real comparison between the two men, Blaine realized. Hull was a gifted amateur, a dilettante murderer; Jones was a seasoned professional killer. It was like matching a ferocious house dog against a jungle tiger.

The end came quickly in the blue twilight of the mountaintop. Sammy Jones parried a thrust and stamped forward, swinging his axe backhanded. The blade bit deep into Hull's left side. Hull fell screaming down the mountain's side. For seconds afterward they heard his body crash and turn.

“Mark where he lies,” Sammy Jones said.

“He's gotta be dead,” the saber man said.

“He probably is. But it isn't a workmanlike job unless we make sure.”

On the way down they found Hull's mangled and lifeless body. They marked the location for the burial party and walked on to the estate.

18

The hunters returned to the city in a group and threw a wild celebration. During the evening, Sammy Jones asked Blaine if he would join him on the next job.

“I've got a nice deal lined up in Omsk,” Jones said. “A Russian nobleman wants to hold a couple of gladiatorial games. You'd have to use a spear, but it's the same as a rifle. I'd train you on the way. After Omsk, there's a really big hunt being organized in Manila. Five brothers want to suicide together. They want fifty hunters to cut them down. What do you say, Tom?”

Blaine thought carefully before answering. The hunter's life was the most compatible he had found so far in this world. He liked the rough companionship of men like Sammy Jones, the straight, simple thinking, the life outdoors, the action that erased all doubts.

On the other hand there was something terribly pointless about wandering around the world as a paid killer, a modern and approved version of the bully, the bravo, the thug. There was something futile about action just for action's sake, with no genuine intent or purpose behind it, no resolution or discovery. These considerations might not arise if he were truly what his body seemed; but he was not. The hiatus existed, and had to be faced.

And finally there were other problems that this world presented, other challenges more apropos to his personality. And those had to be met. “Sorry, Sammy,” he said.

Jones shook his head. “You’re making a mistake, Tom. You’re a natural-born killer. There's nothing else for you.”

“Perhaps not,” Blaine said. “I have to find out.”

“Well, good luck,” Sammy Jones said. “And take care of that body of yours. You picked a good one.”

Blaine blinked involuntarily. “Is it so obvious?”

Jones grinned. “I been around, Tom. I can tell when a man is wearing a host. If your mind had been born in that body, you'd be away and hunting with me. And if your mind had been born in a different body —”

“Yes?”

“You wouldn't have gone hunting in the first place. It's a bad splice, Tom. You'd better figure out which way you’re going.”

“Thanks,” Blaine said. They shook hands and Blaine left for his hotel.

He reached his room and flung himself, fully dressed, upon the bed. When he awoke he would call Marie. But first, he had to sleep. All plans, thoughts, problems, decisions, even dreams, would have to wait. He was tired down to the very bone.

He snapped off the lights. Within seconds he was asleep.

Several hours later he awoke with a sensation of something wrong. The room was dark. Everything was still, more silent and expectant than New York had any right to be.

He sat upright in bed and heard a faint movement on the other side of the room, near the washbasin.

Blaine reached out and snapped on the light. There was no one in the room. But as he watched, his enamelled washbasin rose in the air. Slowly it lifted, hovering impossibly without support. And at the same time he heard a thin shattering laugh.

He knew at once he was being haunted, and by a poltergeist.

Carefully he eased out of bed and moved toward the door. The suspended basin dipped suddenly and plunged toward his head. He ducked, and the basin shattered against the wall.

His water pitcher levitated now, followed by two heavy tumblers. Twisting and turning erratically, they edged toward him.

Blaine picked up a pillow as a shield and rushed to the door. He turned the lock as a tumbler shattered above his head. The door wouldn't open. The poltergeist was holding it shut.

The pitcher struck him violently in the ribs. The remaining tumbler buzzed in an ominous circle around his head, and he was forced to retreat from the door.

He remembered the fire escape outside his window. But the poltergeist thought of it as he started to move. The curtains suddenly burst into flame. At the same instant the pillow he was holding caught fire, and Blaine threw it from him;

“Help!” he shouted. “Help!”

He was being forced into a corner of the room. With a rumble the bed slid forward, blocking his retreat. A chair rose slowly into the air and poised itself for a blow at his head.

And continually there was a thin and shattering laughter that Blaine could almost recognize.