Immortality, Inc

27

When he revived, Blaine decided that he didn't like the hereafter. It was dark, lumpy, and it smelled of oil and slime. Also, his head ached, and his back felt as though it had been broken in three places.

Could a spirit ache? Blaine moved, and discovered that he still had a body. As a matter of fact, he felt all body. Apparently he wasn't in the hereafter.

“Just rest a minute,” a voice said.

“Who is it?” Blaine asked into the impenetrable darkness.

“Smith.”

“Oh. You.” Blaine sat up and held his throbbing head. “How did you do it. Smith?”

“I nearly didn't,” the zombie told him. “As soon as you were declared Quarry, I came for you. Some of my friends down here volunteered to help, but you were moving too fast. I shouted to you when you came out of the pawnshop.”

“I thought I heard a voice,” Elaine said.

“If you'd turned around, we could have taken you in there and then. But you didn't so we followed. A few times we opened subway grates and manhole covers for you, but it was hard to gauge it right. We were a little late each time.”

“But not the last time,” Blaine said.

“At last I had to open a grate right under you. I'm sorry you hit your head.”

“Where am I?”

“I pulled you out of the main line,” Smith said. “You’re in a side passageway. The hunters can't find you here.”

Blaine once again could find no adequate words for thanking Smith. And Smith once again wanted no thanks.

“I'm not doing it for you, Blaine. It's for me. I need you.”

“Have you found out why yet?”

“Not yet,” Smith said.

Blame's eyes, adjusting to the gloom, could make out the outline of the zombie's head and shoulders. “What now?” he asked.

“Now you’re safe. We can bring you underground as far as New Jersey. From there you’re on your own. But I don't think you should have much trouble then.”

“What are we waiting for now?”

“Mr. Kean. I need his permission to take you through the passageways.”

They waited. In a few minutes, Blaine was able to make out Mr. Kean's thin shape, leaning on the big Negro's arm, coming toward him.

“I'm sorry about your troubles,” Kean said, sitting down beside Blaine. “It's a great pity.”

“Mr. Kean,” Smith said, “if I could just be allowed to take him through the old Holland Tunnel, into New Jersey —”

“I'm truly sorry,” Kean said, “but I cannot allow it.”

Blaine looked around and saw that he was surrounded by a dozen ragged zombies.

“I've spoken to the hunters,” Kean said, “and I have given them my guarantee that you will be back on the surface streets within half an hour. You must leave now, Blaine.”

“But why?”

“We simply can't afford to help you,” Kean said. “I was taking an unusual risk the first time, allowing you to defile Reilly's tomb. But I did it for Smith, because his destiny seems linked with yours in some way. And Smith is one of my people. But this is too much. You know we are allowed to live underground upon sufferance only.”

“I know,” Blaine said.

“Smith should have considered the consequences. When he opened that grating for you, the hunters poured in. They didn't find you, but they knew you were down here somewhere. So they searched, Blaine, they searched! Dozens of them, exploring our passageways, pushing our people around, threatening, shouting, talking on their little radios. Reporters came too, and even idle spectators. Some of the younger hunters became nervous and started shooting at the zombies.”

“I'm very sorry about that,” Blaine said.

“It wasn't your fault. But Smith should have known better. The world of the underground is not a sovereign kingdom. We exist on sufferance only, on a toleration which might be wiped out at any time. So I spoke to the hunters and the reporters.”

“What did you tell them?” Blaine asked.

“I told them that a faulty grate had given way beneath you. I said you had fallen in by accident and had crawled into hiding. I assured them that no zombie had been involved in this; that we found you and would place you back on the surface streets within half an hour. They accepted my word and left. I wish I could have done otherwise.”

“I don't blame you,” Blaine said, getting slowly to his feet.

“I didn't specify where you would emerge,” Kean said. “At the very least, you'll have a better chance than before. I wish I could do more, but I cannot allow the underground to become a stage for hunts. We must stay neutral, annoy no one, frighten no one. Only in that way will we survive until an age of understanding is reached.”

“Where am I going to come out?” Blaine asked.

“I have chosen an unused subway exit at West 79th Street,” Mr. Kean said. “You should have a good chance from there. And I have done one more thing which I probably shouldn't have done.”

“What's that?”

“I have contacted a friend of yours, who will be waiting at the exit. But please don't tell anyone about it. Let's hurry now!”

Mr. Kean led the procession through the winding underground maze, and Blaine brought up the rear, his headache slowly subsiding. Soon they stopped beside a concrete staircase.

“Here is the exit,” Kean said. “Good luck, Blaine.”

“Thanks,” Blaine said. “And Smith — thanks.”

“I've tried my best for you,” Smith said. “If you die, I'll probably die. If you live, I'll keep on trying to remember.”

“And if you do remember?”

“Then I'll come and visit you,” Smith said.

Blaine nodded and walked up the staircase.

It was full night outside, and 79th Street seemed deserted. Blaine stood beside the exit, looking around, wondering what to do.

“Blaine!”

Someone was calling him. But it was not Marie, as he had expected. It was a man's voice, someone he knew — Sammy Jones, perhaps, or Theseus.

He turned quickly back to the subway exit. It was closed and fastened securely.

28

“Tom, Tom, it's me!”

“Ray?”

“Of course! Keep your voice down. There's hunters not far away. Wait now.”

Blaine waited, crouched beside the barred subway exit, peering around. He could see no sign of Melhill. There was no ectoplasmic vapor, nothing except a whispering voice.

“OK,” Melhill said. “Walk west now. Quickly.”

Blaine walked, sensing Melhill's invisible presence hovering near him. He said, “Ray, how come?”

“It's about time I was some help,” Melhill said. “That old Kean contacted your girl friend and she got in touch with me through the Spiritual Switchboard. Wait! Stop right here.”

Blaine ducked back against the corner of a building. A heli cruised slowly by at housetop level.

“Hunters,” Melhill said. “There's a field day on you, kid. Reward posted. Even a reward for information leading to. Tom, I told Marie I'd try to help. Don't know how long I can. Drains me. It's hereafter for me after this.”

“Ray, I don't know how —”

“Cut it out. Look Tom, I can't talk much. Marie has fixed a deal with some friends of hers. They've got a plan, if I can get you to them. Stop!”

Blaine stopped and found shelter behind a mailbox. Long seconds passed. Then three hunters hurried by, sidearms ready. After they turned a corner, Blaine was able to start walking again.

“Some eyes you have,” he said to Melhill.

“The vision's pretty good up here,” Melhill said. “Cross this street fast.”

Blaine sprinted across. For the next fifteen minutes, at Melhill's instructions, he wound in and out of streets, advancing and retreating across the battleground of the city.

“This is it,” Melhill said at last. “That door over there, number 341. You made it! I'll see you, Tom. Watch —”

At that moment, two men rounded a corner, stopped, and stared hard at Blaine. One said, “Hey, that's the guy!”

“What guy?”

“The guy they got the reward out for. Hey you.”

They ran forward. Blaine, his fists swinging, quickly chopped the first man into unconsciousness. He whirled, looking for the second, but Melhill had the situation well in control.

The second man had his hands over his head, trying to guard himself. A garbage can cover, levitating mysteriously, was clanging angrily around his ears. Blaine stepped forward and finished the job.

“Damn good,” Melhill said, his voice very weak. “Always wanted to try ghosting. But it drains… Luck, Tom!”

“Ray!” Blaine waited, but there was no answer, and the sense of Melhill's presence was gone.

Blaine waited no longer. He went to number 341, opened the door and stepped in.

He was in a narrow hallway. At the end of it was a door. Blaine knocked.

“Come in,” he was told.

He opened the door and walked into a small, dingy, heavily curtained room.

Blaine had thought he was proof against any further surprises. But it gave him a start all the same to see, grinning at him, Carl Orc, the body snatcher. And sitting beside him, also grinning, was Joe, the little Transplant peddler.

29

Blaine made an automatic move backwards toward the door, but Orc beckoned him in. The body snatcher was unchanged, still very tall and thin, his tanned face long and mournful, his eyes narrow, direct and honest. His clothes still hung awkwardly on him, as though he were more used to levis than to tailored slacks.

“We were expecting you,” Orc said. “Of course you remember Joe.”

Blaine nodded, remembering very well the furtive-eyed little man who had distracted his attention so that Orc could drug his drink.

“Happy to see you again,” Joe said.

“I'll bet,” Blaine said, not moving from the door.

“Come in and sit down,” Orc said. “We ain't planning to eat you, Tom. Truly not. Let's let bygones be bygones.”

“You tried to kill me.”

“That was business,” Orc said in his straightforward fashion. “We’re on the same side now.”

“How can I be sure of that?”

“No man,” Orc stated, “has ever questioned my honesty. Not when I'm really being honest, which I am now. Miss Thorne hired us to get you safe out of the country, and we intend to do same. Sit down and let's discuss it. Are you hungry?”

Reluctantly Blaine sat down. There were sandwiches on a table, and a bottle of red wine. He realized that he hadn't eaten all day. He started wolfing down sandwiches while Orc lighted a thin brown cigar, and Joe appeared to be dozing.

“You know,” Orc said, exhaling blue smoke, “I very nearly didn't take this job. Not that the money wasn't right; I think Miss Thorne was more than generous. But Tom, this is one of the biggest manhunts our fair city's seen for a while. Ever see anything like it, Joe?”

“Never,” Joe said, shaking his head rapidly. “Town's covered like flypaper.”

“Rex really wants you,” Orc said. “They've set their little hearts on nailing your corpus where they can see it. Makes a man nervous, bucking an organization that size. But it's a challenge, a real man-sized challenge.”

“Carl likes a big challenge,” Joe said.

“I admit that,” Orc said. “Particularly if there's a big profit to be made from it.”

“But where can I go?” Blaine asked. “Where won't Rex find me?”

“Just about nowhere,” Orc said sadly.

“Off the Earth? Mars? Venus?”

“Even worse. The planets have just a few towns and small cities. Everybody knows everybody else. The news would be all over in a week. Also, you wouldn't fit in. Aside from the Chinese on Mars, the planets are still populated mostly with scientific types and their families, and a few youth-training programs. You wouldn't like it.”

“Where, then?”

“That's what I asked Miss Thorne,” Orc said. “We discussed several possibilities. First, there's a zombie-making operation. I could perform it. Rex would never search for you underground.”

“I'd rather die,” Blaine said.

“I would too,” Orc agreed. “So we ruled it out. We thought about finding you a little farm in the Atlantic Abyss. Pretty lonely territory out there. But it takes a special mentality to live undersea and like it, and we didn't figure you had it. You'd probably crack up. So, after due consideration, we decided the best place for you was in the Marquesas.”

“The what?”

“The Marquesas. They’re a scattered group of small islands, originally Polynesian, out towards the middle of the Pacific Ocean. They’re not too far from Tahiti.”

“The South Seas,” Blaine said.

“Right. We figured you should feel more at home there than anywhere else on Earth. It's just like the 20th century, I'm told. And even more important, Rex might leave you alone.”

“Why would they?”

“For obvious reasons, Tom. Why do they want to kill you in the first place? Because they snatched you illegally from the past and they’re worried about what the government's going to do about it. But your going to the Marquesas removes you from the jurisdiction of the U.S. government. Without you, there's no case. And your going so far is a sign to Rex of your good faith. It certainly isn't the act of a man who's going to blab to Uncle Sam. Also, the Marquesas are an independent little nation since the French gave them up, so Rex would have to get special permission to hunt you there. On the whole, it should be just too much trouble for everyone concerned. The U.S. government will undoubtedly drop the matter, and I think Rex will leave you alone.”

“Is that certain?” Blaine asked.

“Of course not. It's conjecture. But it's reasonable.”

“Couldn't we make a deal with Rex beforehand?”

Orc shook his head. “In order to bargain, Tom, you have to have something to bargain with. As long as you’re in New York, it's easier and safer for them to kill you.”

“I guess you’re right,” Blaine said. “How are you going to get me out?”

Orc and Joe looked at each other uncomfortably. Orc said, “Well, that was our big problem. There just didn't seem to be any way of getting you out alive”

“Heli or jet?”

“They have to stop at the air tolls, and hunters are waiting at all of them. Surface vehicle is equally out of the question.”

“Disguise?”

“Maybe it would have worked during the first hour of the hunt. Now it's impossible, even if we could get you a complete plastic surgery job. By now the hunters are equipped with identity scanners. They'd see through you in a moment.”

“Then there's no way out?” Blaine asked.

Orc and Joe exchanged another uneasy glance. “There is,” Orc said. “Just one way. But you probably won't like it.”

“I like to stay alive. What is it?”

Orc paused and lighted another cigar. “We plan to quick-freeze you to near absolute zero, like for spaceship travel. Then we'll ship your carcass out in a crate of frozen beef. Your body will be in the center of the load, so most likely it won't be detected.”

“Sounds risky,” Blaine said.

“Not too risky,” Orc said.

Blaine frowned, sensing something wrong. “I'll be unconscious through it, won't I?”

After a long pause. Orc said, “No.”

“I won't?”

“It can't be done that way,” Orc told him. “The fact is, you and your body will have to separate. That's the part I'm afraid you won't like.”

“What in hell are you talking about?” Blaine asked, getting to his feet.

“Take it easy,” Orc said. “Sit down, smoke a cigarette, have some more wine. It's like this, Tom. We can't ship out a quick-frozen body with a mind in it. The hunters are waiting for something like that. Can you imagine what happens when they run a quick scan over that shipment of beef and detect a dormant mind in it? Up goes the kite! Adieu la musique! I'm not trying to con you, Tom. It just can't be done like that.”

“Then what happens to my mind?” Blaine asked, sitting down again.

“That,” Orc said, “is where Joe comes in. Tell him, Joe.”

Joe nodded rapidly. “Transplant, my friend, is the answer.”

“Transplant?”

“I told you about it,” Joe said, “on that inauspicious evening when we first met. Remember? Transplant, the great pastime, the game any number can play, the jolt for jaded minds, the tonic for tired bodies. We've got a worldwide network of Transplantees, Mr. Blaine. Folks who like to switch around, men and women who get tired of switch around, men and women who get tired of wearing the same old body. We’re going to key you into the organization.”

“You’re going to ship my mind across the country?” Blaine asked.

“That's it! From body to body,” Joe told him. “Believe me, it's instructive as well as entertaining.”

Blaine got to his feet so quickly that he knocked over his chair. “Like hell!” he said, “I told you then and I'm telling you now, I'm not playing your lousy little game. I'll take my chances on the street.”

He started toward the door.

Joe said, “I know it's a little frightening, but —”

“No!”

Orc shouted, “Damn it, Blaine, will you at least let the man speak?”

“All right,” Blaine said. “Speak.”

Joe poured himself half a glass of wine and threw it down. He said, “Mr. Blaine, it's going to be difficult explaining this to you, a guy from the past. But try to understand what I'm saying.”

Blaine nodded warily.

“Now then. Transplant is used as a sex game these days, and that's how I peddle it. Why? Because people are ignorant of its better uses, and because a reactionary government insists on banning it. But Transplant is a lot more than a game. It's an entire new way of life! And whether you or the government like it or not, Transplant represents the world of the future.”

The little pusher's eyes glowed. Blaine sat down again.

“There are two basic elements in human affairs,” Joe said sententiously. “One of them is man's eternal struggle for freedom: Freedom of worship, freedom of press and assembly, freedom to select government — freedom! And the other basic element in human affairs is the efforts of government to withhold freedom from the people.”

Blaine considered this a somewhat simplified view of human affairs. But he continued listening.

“Government,” Joe said, “withholds freedom for many reasons. For security, for personal profit, for power, or because they feel the people are unready for it. But whatever the reason, the basic facts remain: Man strives for freedom, and government strives to withhold freedom. Transplant is simply one more in a long series of the freedoms that man has aspired to, and that his government feels is not good for him.”

“Sexual freedom?” Blaine asked mockingly.

“No!” Joe cried. “Not that there's anything wrong with sexual freedom. But Transplant isn't primarily that. Sure, that's how we’re pushing it — for propaganda purposes. Because people don't want abstract ideas, Mr. Blaine, and they don't go for cold theory. They want to know what a freedom will do for them. We show them a small part of it, and they learn a lot more themselves.”

“What will Transplant do?” Blaine asked.

“Transplant,” Joe said fervently, “gives man the ability to transcend the limits imposed by his heredity and his environment!”

“Huh?”

“Yes! Transplant lets you exchange knowledge, bodies, talents and skills with anyone who wishes to exchange with you. And plenty do. Most men don't want to perform a single set of skills all their life, no matter how satisfying those skills are. Man is too restless a creature. Musicians want to be engineers, advertising men want to be hunters, sailors want to be writers. But there usually isn't time to acquire and exploit more than one set of skills in a lifetime. And even if there were time, the blind factor of talent is an insurmountable stumbling block. With Transplant, you can get the inborn talents, the skills, the knowledge that you want. Think about it, Mr. Blaine. Why should a man be forced to live out his lifetime in a body he had no part in selecting? It's like telling him he must live with the diseases he's inherited, and mustn't try to cure them. Man must have the freedom to choose the body and talents best suited to his personality needs.”

“If your plan went through,” Blaine said, “you'd simply have a bunch of neurotics changing bodies every day.”

“The same general argument was raised against the passage of every freedom,” Joe said, his eyes glittering. “Throughout history it was argued that man didn't have the sense to choose his own religion, or that women didn't have the intelligence to use the vote, or that people couldn't be allowed to elect their own representatives because of the stupid choices they'd make. And of course there are plenty of neurotics around, people who'd louse up heaven itself. But you have a much greater number of people who'd use their freedoms well.”

Joe lowered his voice to a persuasive whisper. “You must realize, Mr. Blaine, that a man is not his body, for he receives his body accidentally. He is not his skills, for those are frequently born of necessity. He is not his talents, which are produced by heredity and by early environmental factors. He is not the sicknesses to which he may be predisposed, and he is not the environment that shapes him. A man contains all these things, but he is greater than their total. He has the power to change his environment, cure his diseases, advance his skills — and, at last, to choose his body and talents! That is the next freedom, Mr. Blaine! It's historically inevitable, whether you or I or the government like it or not. For man must have every possible freedom!”

Joe finished his fierce and somewhat incoherent oration red-faced and out of breath. Blaine stared at the little man with new respect. He was looking, he realized, at a genuine revolutionary of the year 2110.

Orc said, “He's got a point, Tom. Transplant is legal in Sweden and Ceylon, and it doesn't seem to have hurt the moral fibre much.”

“In time,” Joe said, pouring himself a glass of wine, “the whole world will go Transplant. It's inevitable.”

“Maybe,” Orc said. “Or maybe they'll invent some new freedom to take its place. Anyhow, Tom, you can see that Transplant has some moral justifications. And it's the only way of saving that body of yours. What do you say?”

“Are you a revolutionary, too?” Blaine asked.

Orc grinned. “Could be. I guess I'm like the blockade runners during the American Civil War, or the guys who sold guns to Central American revolutionaries. They worked for a profit, but they weren't against social change.”

“Well, well,” Blaine said sardonically. “And up to now I thought you were just a common criminal.”

“Skip it,” Orc said pleasantly. “Are you willing to try?”

“Certainly. I'm overwhelmed,” Blaine said. “I never thought I'd find myself in the advance guard of a social revolution.”

Orc smiled and said, “Good. Hope it works out for you, Tom. Roll up your sleeve. We'd better get started.”

Blaine rolled up his left sleeve while Orc took a hypodermic from a drawer.

“This is just to knock you out,” Orc explained. “The Yoga Machine is in the next room. It does the real work. When you come to, you'll be a guest in someone else's mind, and your body will be travelling cross country in deep freeze. They'll be brought together as soon as it's safe.”

“How many minds will I occupy?” Blaine asked. “And for how long?”

“I don't know how many we'll have to use. As for how long in each, a few seconds, minutes, maybe half an hour. We'll move you along as fast as we can. This isn't a full Transplant, you know. You won't be taking over the body. You'll just be occupying a small portion of its consciousness, as an observer. So stay quiet and act natural. Got that?”

Blaine nodded. “But how does this Yoga Machine work?”

“It works like Yoga,” Orc said. “The machine simply does what you could do yourself if you were thoroughly trained in Yoga exercises. It relaxes every muscle and nerve in your body, focuses and calms your mind, helps build up your concentration. When you've reached potential, you’re ready to make an astral projection. The machine does that for you, too. It helps you release your hold on the body, which a Yoga adept could do without mechanical assistance. It projects you to the person we've selected, who yields room. Attraction takes care of the rest. You slip in like a stranded fish going back into water.”

“Sounds risky,” Blaine said. “Suppose I can't get in?”

“Man, you can't help but get in! Look, you've heard of demonic possession, haven't you? Guys under the control of so-called demons? The idea runs through most of the world's folklore. Some of the possessed were schizophrenic, of course, and some were downright frauds. But there were a lot of cases of real spiritual invasion, minds taken over by others who had learned the trick of breaking out of their own body and casting into another. The invaders took over with no mechanical help, and against an all-out battle on the part of their victims. In your case you've got the Yoga Machine, and the people are willing to have you in. So why worry?”

“All right,” Blaine said. “What are the Marquesas like?”

“Beautiful,” Orc said, sliding the needle into Blaine's arm. “You'll like it there.”

Blaine drifted slowly into unconsciousness, thinking of palm trees, of white surf breaking against a coral reef, and of dark-eyed maidens worshipping a god of stone.

30

There was no sense of awakening, no feeling of transition. Abruptly, like a brilliantly colored slide projected upon a white screen, he was conscious. Suddenly, like a marionette jerked into violent life, he was acting and moving.

He was not completely Thomas Blaine. He was Edgar Dyersen as well. Or he was Blaine within Dyersen, an integral part of Dyersen's body, a segment of Dyersen's mind, viewing the world through Dyersen's rheumy eyes, thinking Dyersen's thoughts, experiencing all the shadowy half-conscious fragments of Dyersen's memories, hopes, fears and desires. And yet he was still Blaine.

Dyersen-Blaine came out of the ploughed field and rested against his wooden fence. He was a farmer, an old-fashioned South Jersey truck farmer, with a minimum of machines which he distrusted anyhow. He was close to seventy and in damn good health. There was still a touch of arthritis in his joints, which the smart young medico in the village had mostly fixed; and his back sometimes gave him trouble before rain. But he considered himself healthy, healthier than most, and good for another twenty years.

Dyersen-Blaine started toward his cottage. His gray workshirt was drenched in acrid sweat, and sweat stained his shapeless levis.

In the distance he heard a dog barking and saw, blurrily, a yellow and brown shape come bounding toward him. (Eyeglasses? No thank you. Doing pretty well with what I got.)

“Hey, Champ! Hey there, boy!”

The dog ran a circle around him, then trotted along beside him. He had something gray in his jaws, a rat or perhaps a piece of meat. Dyersen-Blaine couldn't quite make it out.

He bent down to pat Champ's head…

Again there was no sense of transition or of the passage of time. A new slide was simply projected onto the screen, and a new marionette was jerked into life.

Now he was Thompson-Blaine, nineteen years old, lying on his back half dozing on the rough planks of a sailing skiff, the mainsheet and tiller held loosely in one brown hand. To starboard lay the low Eastern shore, and to his port he could see a bit of Baltimore Harbor. The skiff moved easily on the light summer breeze, and water gurgled merrily beneath the forefoot.

Thompson-Blaine rearranged his lanky, tanned body on the planks, squirming around until he had succeeded in propping his feet against the mast. He had been home just a week, after a two year work and study program on Mars. It had sure been interesting, especially the archaeology and speleology. The sand-farming had gotten dull sometimes, but he had enjoyed driving the harvesting machines.

Now he was home for a two-year accelerated college course. Then he was supposed to return to Mars as a farm manager. That's the way his scholarship read. But they couldn't make him go back if he didn't want to.

Maybe he would. And maybe not.

The girls on Mars were such dedicated types. Tough, capable, and always a little bossy. When he went back — if he went back — he'd bring his own wife, not look for one there. Of course there had been Marcia, and she'd really been something. But her whole kibbutz had moved to the South Polar Gap, and she hadn't answered his last three letters. Maybe she hadn't been so much, anyhow.

“Hey, Sandy!”

Thompson-Blaine looked up and saw Eddie Duelitle, sailing his Thistle, waving at him. Languidly Thompson-Blaine waved back. Eddie was only seventeen, had never been off Earth, and wanted to be a spaceliner captain. Huh! Fat chance!

The sun was dipping toward the horizon, and Thompson-Blaine was glad to see it go down. He had a date tonight with Jennifer Hunt. They were going dancing at Starsling in Baltimore, and Dad was letting him use the heli. Man, how Jennifer had grown in two years! And she had a way of looking at a guy, sort of coy and bold at the same time. No telling what might happen after the dance, in the back seat of the heli. Maybe nothing. But maybe, maybe…

Thompson-Blaine sat up and put the tiller over. The skiff came into the wind and tacked over. It was time to return to the yacht basin, then home for dinner, then…

The blacksnake whip flicked across his back.

“Get working there, you!”

Piggot-Blaine redoubled his efforts, lifting the heavy pick high in the air and swinging it down into the dusty roadbed. The guard stood nearby, shotgun under his left arm, whip in his right, its lash trailing in the dust. Piggot-Blaine knew every line and pore of that guard's thin, stupid face, knew the downward twist of the tight little mouth, knew the squint of the faded eyes just like he knew his own face.

Just wait, buzzard meat, he silently told the guard. Your time's a-coming. Just wait, wait just a bit.

The guard moved away, walking slowly up and down the line of prisoners laboring under the white Mississippi sun. Piggot-Blaine tried to spit, but couldn't work up enough saliva. He thought, you talk about your fine modern world? Talk about your big old spaceships, your automatic farms, your big fine fat old hereafter? Think that's how it is? Then ask ‘em how they build the roads in Quilleg County, Northern Mississippi. They won't tell you, so you better look for yourself and find out. Cause that's the kind of world it really is!

Arny, working in front of him, whispered, “You ready, Otis? You ready for it?”

“I'm a-ready,” Piggot-Blaine whispered, his broad fingers clenching and unclenching on the pick's plastic handle. “I'm past ready, Arny.”

“In a second, then. Watch Jeff.”

Piggot-Blaine's hairy chest swelled expectantly. He brushed lank brown hair from his eyes and watched Jeff, five men ahead on the chain. Piggot-Blaine waited, his shoulders aching from sunburn. There were callused scars on his ankles from the hoofcuffs, and old seams on his back from earlier whippings. He had a raging thirst in his gut. But no dipperful of water could ever cut that thirst, nothing could, that crazy thirst that brought him in here after he'd dismembered Gainsville's single saloon and killed that stinking old Indian.

Jeff's hand moved. The chained line of prisoners sprang forward. Piggot-Blaine jumped toward the thin-faced guard, his pick swung high, as the guard dropped his whip and fumbled to bring up the shotgun.

“Buzzard meat!” Piggot-Blaine screamed, and brought the pick down fair in the guard's fore head.

“Get the keys!”

Piggot-Blaine grabbed the keys from the dead guard's belt. He heard a shotgun go off, heard a high scream of agony. Anxiously he looked up…

Ramirez-Blaine was piloting his heli above the flat Texas plains, heading for El Paso. He was a serious young man and he paid strict attention to his work, coaxing the last knot of speed out of the old heli so he could reach El Paso before Johnson's Hardware Store closed.

He handled the balky rattletrap with care, and only an occasional thought came through his concentration, quick thoughts about the altitude and compass readings, a dance in Guanajuato next week, the price of hides in Ciudad Juarez.

The plain was mottled green and yellow below him. He glanced at his watch, then at the airspeed indicator.

Yes, Ramirez-Blaine thought, he would make El Paso before the store closed! He might even have time for a little…

Tyler-Blaine wiped his mouth on his sleeve and sopped up the last of the grease gravy on a piece of corn bread. He belched, pushed his chair back from the kitchen table and stood up. With elaborate unconcern he took a cracked bowl from the pantry and filled it with scraps of pork, a few greens, and a big piece of corn bread.

“Ed,” his wife said, “what are you doing?”

He glanced at her. She was gaunt, tangle-haired, and faded past her years. He looked away, not answering.

“Ed! Tell me, Ed!”

Tyler-Blaine looked at her in annoyance, feeling his ulcer stir at the sound of that sharp, worried voice. Sharpest voice in all California, he told himself, and he'd married it. Sharp voice, sharp nose, sharp elbows and knees, breastless and barren to boot. Legs to support a body, but not for a second's delight. A belly for filling, not for touching. Of all the girls in California he'd doubtless picked the sorriest, just like the damn fool his Uncle Rafe always said he was.

“Where you taking that bowl of food?” she asked.

“Out to feed the dog,” Tyler-Blaine said, moving toward the door.

“We ain't got no dog! Oh Ed, don't do it, not tonight!”

“I'm doin‘ it,” he said, glad of her discomfort.

“Please, not tonight. Let him shift for himself somewhere else. Ed, listen to me! What if the town found out?”

“It's past sundown,” Tyler-Blaine said, standing beside the door with his bowl of food.

“People spy,” she said. “Ed, if they find out they'll lynch us, you know they will.”

“You'd look mighty spry from the end of a rope,” Tyler-Blaine remarked, opening the door.

“You do it just to spite me!” she cried.

He closed the door behind him. Outside, it was deep twilight. Tyler-Blaine stood in his yard near the unused chicken coop, looking around. The only house near his was the Flannagan's, a hundred yards away. But they minded their own business. He waited to make sure none of the town kids were snooping around. Then he walked forward, carefully holding the bowl of food.

He reached the edge of the scraggly woods and set the bowl down. “It's all right,” he called softly. “Come out, Uncle Rafe.”

A man crawled out of the woods on all fours. His face was leaden-white, his lips bloodless, his eyes blank and staring, his features coarse and unfinished, like iron before tempering or clay before firing. A long cut across his neck had festered, and his right leg, where the townsfolk had broken it, hung limp and useless.

“Thanks, boy,” said Rafe, Tyler-Blaine's zombie uncle.

The zombie quickly gulped down the contents of the bowl. When he had finished, Tyler-Blaine asked, “How you feeling, Uncle Rafe?”

“Ain't feeling nothing. This old body's about through. Another couple days, maybe a week, and I'll be off your hands.”

“I'll take care of you,” Tyler-Blaine said, “just as long as you can stay alive, Uncle Rafe. I wish I could bring you into the house.”

“No,” the zombie said, “they'd find out. This is risky enough… Boy, how's that skinny wife of yours?”

“Just as mean as ever,” Tyler-Blaine sighed.

The zombie made a sound like laughter. “I warned you, boy, ten years ago I warned you not to marry that gal. Didn't I?”

“You sure did, Uncle Rafe. You was the only one had sense. Sure wish I'd listened to you.”

“Better you had, boy. Well, I'm going back to my shelter.”

“You feel confident, Uncle?” Tyler-Blaine asked anxiously.

“That I do.”

“And you'll try to die confident?”

“I will, boy. And I'll get me into that Threshold, never you fear. And when I do, I'll keep my promise. I truly will.”

“Thank you, Uncle Rafe.”

“I'm a man of my word. I'll haunt her, boy, if the good Lord grants me Threshold. First comes that fat doctor that made me this. But then I'll haunt her. I'll haunt her crazy. I'll haunt her ‘til she runs the length of the state of California away from you!”

“Thanks, Uncle Rafe.”

The zombie made a sound like laughter and crawled back into the scraggly woods. Tyler-Blaine shivered uncontrollably for a moment, then picked up the empty bowl and walked back to the sagging washboard house…

Mariner-Blaine adjusted the strap of her bathing suit so that it clung more snugly to her slim, supple young body. She slipped the air tank over her back, picked up her respirator and walked toward the pressure lock.

“Janice?”

“Yes mother?” she said, turning, her face smooth and expressionless.

“Where are you going, dear?”

“Just out for a swim, Mom. I thought maybe I'd look at the new gardens on Level 12.”

“You aren't by any chance planning to see Tom Leuwin, are you?”

Had her mother guessed? Mariner-Blaine smoothed her black hair and said, “Certainly not.”

“All right,” her mother said, half smiling and obviously not believing her. “Try to be home early, dear. You know how worried your father gets.”

She stooped and gave her mother a quick kiss, then hurried into the pressure lock. Mother knew, she was sure of it! And wasn't stopping her! But then, why should she? After all, she was seventeen, plenty old enough to do anything she wanted. Kids grew up faster these days than they did in Mom's time, though parents didn't seem to realize it. Parents didn't realize very much. They just wanted to sit around and plan out new acres for the farm. Their idea of fun was to listen to some old classic recording, a Bop piece or a Rock ‘n’ Roll, and follow it with scores and talk about how free and expressionistic their ancestors had been. And sometimes they'd go through big, glossy art books filled with reproductions of 20th century Comic Strips, and talk about the lost art of satire. Their idea of a really Big Night was to go down to the gallery and stare reverently at the collection of Saturday Evening Post covers from the Great Period. But all that longhair stuff bored her. Nuts to art, she liked the sensories.

Mariner-Blaine adjusted her face mask and respirator, put on her flippers and turned the valve. In a few seconds the lock was filled with water. Impatiently she waited until the pressure had equalized with the water outside. Then the lock opened automatically and she shot out.

Her dad's pressure farm was at the hundred foot level, not far from the mammoth underwater bulk of Hawaii. She turned downward, descending into the green bloom with quick, powerful strokes. Tom would be waiting for her at the coral caves.

The darkness grew as Mariner-Blaine descended. She switched on her headlamp and took a firmer bite on her respirator. Was it true, she wondered, that soon the undersea farmers would be able to grow their own gills? That's what her science teacher said, and maybe it would happen in her own lifetime. How would she look with gills? Mysterious, probably, sleek and strange, a fish goddess.

Besides, she could always cover them with her hair if they weren't becoming.

In the yellow glow of her lamp she saw the coral caves ahead, a red and pink branched labyrinth with cozy, airlocked places deep within, where you could be sure of privacy. And she saw Tom.

Uncertainty flooded her. Gosh, what if she had a baby? Tom had assured her it would be all right, but he was only nineteen. Was she right in doing this? They had talked about it often enough, and she had shocked him with her frankness. But talking and doing were very different things. What would Tom think of her if she said no? Could she make a joke out of it, pretend she'd just been teasing him?

Long and golden, Tom swam beside her toward the caves. He flashed hello in finger talk. A trigger fish swam by, and then a small shark.

What was she going to do? The caves were very near, looming dark and suggestive before them. Tom smiled at her, and she could feel her heart melting…

Elgin-Blaine sat upright, realizing that he must have dozed off. He was aboard a small motor vessel, sitting in a deck chair with blankets tucked around him. The little ship rolled and pitched in the cross-sea, but overhead the sun was brilliant, and the trade wind carried the diesel smoke away in a wide dark plume.

“You feeling better, Mr. Elgin?”

Elgin-Blaine looked up at a small, bearded man wearing a captain's cap. “Fine, just fine,” he said.

“We’re almost there,” the captain said.

Elgin-Blaine nodded, disoriented, trying to take stock of himself. He thought hard and remembered that he was shorter than average, heavily muscled, barrel chested, broad shouldered, with legs a little short for such a herculean torso, with large and callused hands. There was an old, jagged scar on his shoulder, souvenir of a hunting accident…

Elgin and Blaine merged.

Then he realized that he was back at last in his own body. Blaine was his name, and Elgin was the pseudonym under which Carl Orc and Joe must have shipped him.

The long flight was over! His mind and his body were together again!

“We were told you weren't well, sir,” the captain said. “But you've been in this coma for so long —”

“I'm fine now,” Blaine told him. “Are we far from the Marquesas?”

“Not far. The island of Nuku Hiva is just a few hours away.”

The captain returned to his wheelhouse. And Blaine thought about the many personalities he had met and mingled with.

He respected the staunch and independent old Dyersen walking slowly back to his cottage, hoped young Sandy Thompson would return to Mars, felt regret for the warped and murderous Piggot, enjoyed his meeting with the serious and upright Juan Ramirez, felt mingled sorrow and contempt for the sly and ineffectual Ed Tyler, prayed for the best for pretty Janice Mariner.

They were with him still. Good or bad, he wished them all well. They were his family now. Distant relatives, cousins and uncles he would never meet again, nieces and nephews upon whose destiny he would brood.

Like all families they were a mixed lot; but they were his, and he could never forget them.

“Nuku Hiva in sight!” the captain called.

Blaine saw, on the edge of the horizon, a tiny black dot capped by a white cumulus cloud. He rubbed his forehead vigorously, determined to think no more about his adopted family. There were present realities to deal with. Soon he would be coming to his new home; and that required a little serious thinking.

31

The ship steamed slowly into Taio Hae Bay. The captain, a proud native son, volunteered to Blaine the principal facts about his new home.

The Marquesas Islands, he explained, were composed of two fairly distinct island groups, all of them rugged and mountainous. Once the group had been called the Cannibal Islands, and the Marquesans had been noted for their ability at cutting out a trading ship or massacring a black-birding schooner. The French had acquired the islands in 1842, and granted them autonomy in 1993. Nuku Hiva was the main island and capital for the group. Its highest peak, Temetiu, was nearly four thousand feet high. Its port city, Taiohae, boasted a population of almost five thousand souls. It was a quiet, easy-going place, the captain said, and it was considered a sort of shrine all over the hurried, bustling South Seas. For here was the last refuge of unspoiled 20th century Polynesia.

Blaine nodded, absorbing little of the captain's lecture, more impressed by the sight of the great dark mountain ahead laced with silver waterfalls, and by the sound of the ocean pounding against the island's granite face.

He decided he was going to like it here.

Soon the ship was docked at the town wharf, and Blaine stepped off to view the town of Taiohae.

He saw a supermarket and three movie theaters, rows of ranch-style houses, many palm trees, some low white stores with plate glass windows, numerous cocktail lounges, dozens of automobiles, a gas station and a traffic light. The sidewalks were filled with people wearing colorful shirts and pressed slacks. All had on sunglasses.

So this was the last refuge of unspoiled 20th century Polynesia, Blaine thought. A Florida town set in the South Seas!

Still, what more could he expect in the year 2110? Ancient Polynesia was as dead as Merrie England or Bourbon France. And 20th century Florida, he remembered, could be very pleasant indeed.

He walked down Main Street, and saw a notice on a building stating that Postmaster Alfred Gray had been appointed Hereafter, Inc. representative for the Marquesas Group. And further on, he came to a small black building with a sign on it that said Public Suicide Booth.

Ah, Blaine thought sardonically, modern civilization is encroaching even here! Next thing you know they'll be setting up a Spiritual Switchboard. And where will we be then?

He had reached the end of town. As he started back, a stout, red-faced man hurried up to him

“Mr Elgin? Mr. Thomas Elgin?”

“That's me,” Blaine said, with a certain apprehension.

“Terribly sorry I missed you at the dock,” said the red-faced man, mopping his wide and gleaming forehead with a bandanna. “No excuse, of course. Sheer oversight on my part. The languor of the islands. Inevitable after a while. Oh, I'm Davis, owner of the Point Boatyard. Welcome to Taiohae, Mr. Elgin.”

“Thank you, Mr. Davis” Blaine said.

“On the contrary. I want to thank you again for answering my advertisement,” Davis said. “I've been needing a Master Boatwright for months. You have no idea! And frankly, I didn't expect to attract a man of your qualifications.”

“Ummm,” Blaine said, surprised and pleased at the thoroughness of Carl Orc's preparations.

“Not many men around with a grounding in 20th century boatbuilding methods,” Davis said sadly. “Lost art. Have you had a look around the island?”

“Just very briefly,” Blaine said.

“Think you'll want to stay?” Davis asked anxiously. “You have no idea how hard it is getting a good boatwright to settle down in a quiet little backwater like this. No sooner do they get here, they want to go charging off to the big booming cities like Papeete or Apia. I know wages are higher in places like that, and there's more amusements and society and things. But Taiohae has a charm of its own.”

“I've had my fill of the cities,” Blaine said, smiling. “I'm not likely to go charging off, Mr. Davis.”

“Good, good!” Davis said. “Don't bother coming to work for a few days, Mr. Elgin. Rest, take it easy, look around our island. It's the last refuge of primitive Polynesia, you know. Here are the keys to your house. Number one Temetiu Road, straight up the mountain there. Shall I show you the way?”

“I'll find it,” Blaine said. “Thanks very much, Mr. Davis.”

“Thank you, Mr. Elgin. I'll drop in on you tomorrow after you’re a bit more settled. Then you can meet some of our townsfolk. In fact, the mayor's wife is giving a party Thursday. Or is it Friday? Anyhow, I'll find out and let you know.”

They shook hands and Blaine started up Temetiu Road, to his new home.

It was a small, freshly painted bungalow with a spectacular view of Nuku Hiva's three southern bays. Blaine admired the sight for a few minutes, then tried the door. It was unlocked, and he walked in.

“It's about time you got here.”

Blaine just stared, not able to believe what he saw.

“Marie!”

She appeared as slim, lovely and cool as ever. But she was nervous. She talked rapidly and avoided meeting his eyes.

“I thought it would be best if I made the final arrangements on the spot,” she said. “I've been here for two days, waiting for you. You've met Mr. Davis, haven't you? He seems like a very nice little man.”

“Marie —”

“I told him I was your fiancée,” she said. “I hope you don't mind, Tom. I had to have some excuse for being here. I said I had come out early to surprise you. Mr. Davis was delighted of course, he wants his Master Boatwright to settle here so badly. Do you mind, Tom? We can always say we broke off the engagement and —”

Blaine took her in his arms and said, “I don't want to break off the engagement. I love you, Marie.”

“Oh Tom, Tom, I love you!” She clung to him fiercely for a moment, then stepped back. “We'd better arrange for a marriage ceremony soon, if you don't mind. They’re very stuffy and small-townish here; very 20th century, if you know what I mean.”

“I think I know what you mean,” Blaine said.

They looked at each other and burst out laughing.

32

Marie insisted upon staying at the South Seas Motel until a wedding could be arranged. Blaine suggested a quiet ceremony before a justice of the peace; but Marie surprised him by wanting as large a wedding as Taiohae could produce. It was held on Sunday, at the Mayor's house.

Mr. Davis loaned them a little cutter from the boatyard. They set sail at sunrise for a honeymoon cruise to Tahiti.

For Blaine, it had the sensation of a delicious and fleeting dream. They sailed across a sea carved of green jade, and saw the moon, yellow and swollen, quartered by the cutter's shrouds and tangled in its stays. The sun rose out of a long black cloud, reached its zenith and declined, scouring the sea into a gleaming bowl of brass. They anchored in the lagoon at Papeete and saw the mountains of Moorea flaming in the sunset, more fantastic than the mountains of the Moon.

And Blaine remembered a day on the Chesapeake when he had dreamed, Ah, Rai’atea, the mountains of Moorea, the fresh trade wind …

A continent and an ocean had separated him from Tahiti, and other obstacles besides. But that had been in another century.

They went to Moorea, rode horses up the slopes and picked the white tiare Tahiti. They returned to their boat anchored in the bay below, and set sail for the Tuamotos.

At last they returned to Taiohae. Marie started housekeeping, and Blaine began to work at the boatyard.

They waited anxiously through the first weeks, scanning the New York papers, wondering what Rex would do. But no word or sign came from the corporation, and they decided that the danger must be past. Still, they read with relief two months later that the Blaine hunt had been called off.

Blaine's job at the boatyard was interesting and varied. The island cutters and ketches limped in with bent shafts or nicked propellers, with planks that had been splintered against a hidden coral head, with sails blown out by a sudden gale. There were underwater craft to be serviced, boats belonging to the nearby undersea pressure farms that used Taiohae as a supply base. And there were dinghies to build, and an occasional schooner.

Blaine handled all practical details with skill and dispatch. As time went by, he started to write a few publicity releases about the yard for the South Seas Courier. This brought in more business, which involved more paper work and a greater need for liaison between the Point Boatyard and the small yards to which it farmed out work. Blaine handled this, and took over advertising as well.

His job as Master Boatwright came to bear an uncanny resemblance to his past jobs as junior yacht designer.

But this no longer bothered him. It seemed obvious to him now that nature had intended him to be a junior yacht designer, nothing more nor less. This was his destiny, and he accepted it.

His life fell into a pleasant routine built around the boatyard and the white bungalow, filled with Saturday night movies and the microfilm Sunday Times, quick visits to the undersea farms and to other islands in the Marquesas Group, parties at the Mayor's house and poker at the yacht club, brisk sails across Comptroller Bay and moonlight swimming on Temuoa Beach. Blaine began to think that his life had taken its final and definitive form.

Then, nearly four months after he had come to Taiohae, the pattern changed again.

One morning like any other morning Blaine woke up, ate his breakfast, kissed his wife goodbye and went down to the boatyard. There was a fat, round-bilged ketch on the ways, a Tuamotan boat that had gauged wrong trying to shoot a narrow pass under sail, and had been tide-set against a foam-splattered granite wall before the crew could start the engine. Six frames needed sistering, and a few planks had to be replaced. Perhaps they could finish it in a week.

Blaine was looking over the ketch when Mr. Davis came over.

“Say Tom,” the owner said, “there was a fellow around here just a little while ago looking for you. Did you see him?”

“No,” Blaine said. “Who was it?”

“A mainlander,” Davis said, frowning. “Just off the steamer this morning. I told him you weren't here yet and he said he'd see you at your house.”

“What did he look like?” Blaine asked, feeling his stomach muscles tighten.

Davis frowned more deeply. “Well, that's the funny part of it. He was about your height, thin, and very tanned. Had a full beard and sideburns. You don't see that much any more. And he stank of shaving lotion.”

“Sounds peculiar,” Blaine said.

“Very peculiar. I'll swear his beard wasn't real.”

“No?”

“It looked like a fake. Everything about him looked fake. And he limped pretty bad.”

“Did he leave a name?”

“Said his name was Smith. Tom, where are you going?”

“I have to go home right now,” Blaine said. “I'll try to explain later.”

He hurried away. Smith must have found out who he was and what the connection was between them. And, exactly as he had promised, the zombie had come visiting.

33

When he told Marie, she went at once to a closet and took down their suitcases. She carried them into the bedroom and began flinging clothes into them.

“What are you doing?” Blaine asked.

“Packing.”

“So I see. But why?”

“Because we’re getting out of here.”

“What are you talking about? We live here!”

“Not any more,” she said. “Not with that damned Smith around. Tom, he means trouble.”

“I'm sure he does,” Blaine said. “But that's no reason to run. Stop packing a minute and listen! What do you think he can do to me?”

“We’re not going to stay and find out,” she said.

She continued to shove clothes into the suitcase until Blaine grabbed her wrists.

“Calm down,” he told her. “I'm not going to run from Smith.”

“But it's the only sensible thing to do,” Marie said. “He's trouble, but he can't live much longer. Just a few more months, weeks maybe, and he'll be dead. He should have died long before now, that horrible zombie! Tom, let's go!”

“Have you gone crazy or something?” Blaine asked. “Whatever he wants, I can handle it.”

“I've heard you say that before,” Marie said.

“Things were different then.”

“They’re different now! Tom, we could borrow the cutter again, Mr. Davis would understand, and we could go to —”

“No! I'm damned if I'll run from him! Maybe you've forgotten, Marie, Smith saved my life.”

“But what did he save it for?” she wailed. “Tom, I'm warning you! You mustn't see him, not if he remembers!”

“Wait a minute,” Blaine said slowly. “Is there something you know? Something I don't?”

She grew immediately calm. “Of course not.”

“Marie, are you telling me the truth?”

“Yes, darling. But I'm frightened of Smith. Please Tom, humor me this once, let's go away.”

“I won't run another step from anyone,” Blaine said. “I live here. And that's the end of it.”

Marie sat down, looking suddenly exhausted. “All right, dear. Do what you think is best.”

“That's better,” Blaine said. “It'll turn out all right.”

“Of course it will,” Marie said.

Blaine put the suitcases back and hung up the clothes. Then he sat down to wait. He was physically calm. But in memory he had returned to the underground, had passed again through the ornate door covered with Egyptian hieroglyphics and Chinese ideograms, into the vast marble-pillared Palace of Death with its gold and bronze coffin. And heard again Reilly's screaming voice speak through a silvery mist:

“There are things you can't see, Blaine, but I see them. Your time on Earth will be short, very short, painfully short. Those you trust will betray you, those you hate will conquer you. You will die, Blaine, not in years but soon, sooner than you could believe. You'll be betrayed, and you'll die by your own hand.”

That mad old man! Blaine shivered slightly and looked at Marie. She sat with downcast eyes, waiting. So he waited, too.

After a while there was a soft knock at the door.

“Come in,” Blaine said to whoever was outside.

34

Blaine recognized Smith immediately, even with false beard, sideburns and tan stage makeup. The zombie came in, limping, bringing with him a faint odor of decay imperfectly masked by a powerful shaving lotion.

“Excuse the disguise,” Smith said. “It isn't intended to deceive you, or anyone. I wear it because my face is no longer presentable.”

“You've come a long way,” Blaine said.

“Yes, quite far,” Smith agreed, “and through difficulties I won't bore you by relating. But I got here, that's the important thing.”

“Why did you come?”

“Because I know who I am,” Smith said.

“And you think it concerns me?”

“Yes.”

“I can't imagine how,” Blaine said grimly. “But let's hear it.”

Marie said, “Wait a minute. Smith, you've been after him since he came into this world. He's never had a moment's peace. Can't you just accept things as they are? Can't you just go and die quietly somewhere?”

“Not without telling him first,” Smith said.

“Come on, let's hear it,” Blaine said.

Smith said, “My name is James Olin Robinson.”

“Never heard of you,” Blaine said after a moment's thought.

“Of course not.”

“Have we ever met before that time in the Rex building?”

“Not formally.”

“But we met?”

“Briefly.”

“All right, James Olin Robinson, tell me about it. When did we meet?”

“It was quite brief,” Robinson said. “We glimpsed each other for a fraction of a second, then saw no more. It happened late one night in 1958, on a lonely highway, you in your car and me in mine.”

“You were driving the car I had the accident with?”

“Yes. If you can call it an accident.”

“But is was! It was completely accidental!”

“If that's true, I have no further business here,” Robinson said. “But Blaine, I know it was not an accident. It was murder. Ask your wife.”

Blaine looked at his wife sitting in a corner of the couch. Her face was waxen. She seemed drained of vitality. Her gaze seemed to turn inward and not enjoy what it saw there. Blaine wondered if she was staring at the ghost of some ancient guilt, long buried, long quickening, now come to term with the appearance of the bearded Robinson.

Watching her, he slowly began piecing things together.

“Marie,” he said, “what about that night in 1958? How did you know I was going to smash up my car?”

She said, “There are statistical prediction methods we use, valence factors…” Her voice trailed away.

“Or did you make me smash up my car?” Blaine asked. “Did you produce the accident when you wanted it, in order to snatch me into the future for your advertising campaign?”

Marie didn't answer. And Blaine thought hard about the manner of his dying.

He had been driving over a straight, empty highway, his headlights probing ahead, the darkness receding endlessly before him … His car swerved freakishly, violently, toward the oncoming headlights…He twisted hard on the steering wheel. It wouldn't turn … The steering wheel came free and spun in his hands, and the engine wailed …

“By God, you made me have that accident!” Blaine shouted at his wife. “You and Rex Power Systems, you forced my car into a swerve! Look at me and answer! Isn't it true?”

“All right!” she said. “But we didn't mean to kill him. Robinson just happened to be in the way. I'm sorry about that.”

Blaine said, “You've known all along who he was.”

“I've suspected.”

“And never told me.” Blaine paced up and down the room. “Marie! Damn you, you killed me!”

“I didn't, Tom! Not really. I took you from 1958 into our time. I gave you a different body. But I didn't really kill you.”

“You simply killed me,” Robinson said.

With an effort Marie turned from her inner gaze and looked at him. “I'm afraid I was responsible for your death, Mr. Robinson, although not intentionally. Your body must have died at the same time as Tom's. The Rex Power System that snatched him into the future pulled you along, too. Then you took over Reilly's host.”

“A very poor exchange for my former body,” Robinson said.

“I'm sure it was. But what do you want? What can I do? The hereafter —”

“I don't want it,” Robinson said. “I haven't had a chance on the Earth yet.”

“How old were you at the time of the accident?” Blaine asked.

“Nineteen.”

Blaine nodded sadly.

“I'm not ready for the hereafter,” Robinson said. “I want to travel, do things, see things. I want to find out what kind of a man I am. I want to live! Do you know, I've never really known a woman! I'd exchange immortality for ten good years on Earth.”

Robinson hesitated a moment, then said, “I want a body. I want a man's good body that I can live in. Not this dead thing which I wear. Blaine, your wife killed my former body.”

Blaine said, “You want mine?”

“If you think it's fair,” Robinson said.

“Now wait just a minute!” Marie cried. Color had returned to her face. With her confession, she seemed to have freed herself from the grip of the ancient evil in her mind, to have come back to wrestle again with life.

“Robinson,” she said, “You can't ask that from him. He didn't have anything to do with your death. It was my fault, and I'm sorry. You don't want a woman's body, do you? I wouldn't give you mine, anyhow. What's done is done! Get out of here!”

Robinson ignored her and looked at Blaine. “I always knew it was you, Blaine. When I knew nothing else, I knew it was you. I watched over you, Blaine, I saved your life.”

“Yes, you did,” Blaine said quietly.

“So what!” Marie screamed. “So he saved your life. That doesn't mean he owns it! One doesn't save a life and expect it to be forfeited upon request. Tom, don't listen to him!”

Robinson said, “I have no means or intention of forcing you, Blaine. You will decide what you think is right, and I will abide by it. You will remember everything.”

Blaine looked at the zombie almost with affection. “So there's more to it. Much more. Isn't there, Robinson?”

Robinson nodded, his eyes fixed on Blame's face.

“But how did you know?” Blaine asked. “How could you possibly know?”

“Because I understand you. I've made you my lifetime work. My life has revolved around you. I've thought about nothing but you. And the better I knew you, Blaine, the more certain I was about this.”

“Perhaps,” Blaine said.

Marie said, “What on earth are you talking about? What more? What more could there be?”

“I have to think about this,” Blaine said. “I have to remember. Robinson, please wait outside for a little while.”

“Certainly,” the zombie said, and left immediately.

Blaine waved Marie into silence. He sat down and buried his head in his hands. Now he had to remember something he would rather not think about. Now, once and for all, he had to trace it back and understand it.

Etched sharp in his mind still were the words Reilly had screamed at him in the Palace of Death: “You’re responsible! You killed me with your evil murdering mind! Yes you, you hideous thing from the past, you damned monster! Everything shuns you except your friend the dead man! Why aren't you dead, murderer!”

Had Reilly known?

He remembered Sammy Jones saying to him after the hunt: “Tom, you’re a natural-born killer. There's nothing else for you.”

Had Sammy guessed?

And now the most important thing of all. That most significant moment of his life — the time of his death on a night in 1958. Vividly he remembered:

The steering wheel was working again, but Blaine ignored it, filled with a sudden fierce exultancy, a lightning switch of mood that welcomed the smash, lusted for it, and for pain and cruelty and death …

Blaine shuddered convulsively as he relived the moment he had wanted to forget — the moment when he might have avoided catastrophe, but had preferred to kill.

He lifted his head and looked at his wife. He said, “I killed him. That's what Robinson knew. And now I know it, too.”

35

Carefully he explained it all to Marie. She refused at first to believe him.

“It was so far back, Tom! How can you be sure of what happened?”

“I'm sure,” Blaine said. “I don't think anyone could forget the way they died. I remember mine very well. That was how I died.”

“Still, you can't call yourself a murderer because of one moment, one fraction of a second —”

“How long does it take to shoot a bullet or to drive in a knife?” Blaine asked. “A fraction of a second! That's how long it takes to become a murderer.”

“But Tom, you had no motive!”

Blaine shook his head. “It's true that I didn't kill for gain or revenge. But then, I'm not that kind of murderer. That kind is relatively rare. I'm the grass-roots variety, the ordinary average guy with a little of everything in his makeup, including murder. I killed because, in that moment, I had the opportunity. My special opportunity, a unique interlocking of events, moods, train of thought, humidity, temperature, and lord knows what else, which might not have come up again in two lifetimes.”

“But you’re not to blame!” Marie said. “It would never have happened if Rex Power Systems and I hadn't created that special opportunity for you.”

“Yes. But I seized the opportunity,” Blaine said, “seized it and performed a cold-blooded murder just for fun, because I knew I could never be caught at it. My murder.”

“Well… Our murder,” she said.

“Yes.”

“All right, we’re murderers,” Marie said calmly. “Accept it, Tom. Don't get mushy-minded about it. We've killed once, we can kill again.”

“Never,” Blaine said.

“He's almost finished! I swear to you, Tom, there's not a month of life in him. He's almost played out. One blow and he's done for. One push.”

“I'm not that kind of murderer,” Blaine said.

“Will you let me do it?”

“I'm not that kind, either.”

“You idiot! Then just do nothing! Wait. A month, no more than that, and he's finished. You can wait a month, Tom —”

“More murder,” Blaine said wearily.

“Tom! You’re not going to give him your body! What about our life together?”

“Do you think we could go on after this?” Blaine asked. “I couldn't. Now stop arguing with me. I don't know if I'd do this if there weren't a hereafter. Quite probably I wouldn't. But there is a hereafter. I'd like to go there with my accounts as straight as possible, all bills paid in full, all restitutions made. If this were my only existence, I'd cling to it with everything I've got. But it isn't! Can you understand that?”

“Yes, of course,” Marie said unhappily.

“Frankly, I'm getting pretty curious about this afterlife. I want to see it. And there's one thing more.”

“What's that?”

Marie's shoulders were trembling, so Blaine put his arm around her. He was thinking back to the conversation he had had with Hull, the elegant and aristocratic Quarry.

Hull had said: “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 those bright pupils skip a grade or two of school?”

Blaine remembered how strange, dark, atavistic and noble Hull's lordly selection of death had seemed. Pretentious, of course; but then, life itself was a pretension in the vast universe of unliving matter. Hull had seemed like an ancient Japanese nobleman kneeling to perform the ceremonial act of hara-kiri, and emphasizing the importance of life in the very selection of death.

And Hull had said: “The deed of dying transcends class and breeding. It is every man's patent of nobility, his summons from the king, his knightly adventure. And how he acquits himself in that lonely and perilous enterprise is his true measure as a man.”

Marie broke into his reverie, asking, “What was that one thing more?”

“Oh.” Blaine thought for a moment. “I just wanted to say that I guess some of the attitudes of the 22nd century have rubbed off on me. Especially the aristocratic ones.” He grinned and kissed her. “But of course, I always had good taste.”

36

Blaine opened the door of the cottage. “Robinson,” he said, “come with me to the Suicide Booth. I'm giving you my body.”

“I expected no less of you, Tom,” the zombie said.

“Then let's go.”

Together they went slowly down the mountainside. Marie watched them from a window for a few seconds, then started down after them.

They stopped at the door to the Suicide Booth. Blaine said, “Do you think you can take over all right?”

“I'm sure of it,” Robinson said. “Tom, I'm grateful for this. I'll use your body well.”

“It's not mine, really,” Blaine said. “Belonged to a fellow named Kranch. But I've grown fond of it. You'll get used to its habits. Just remind it once in a while who's boss. Sometimes it wants to go hunting.”

“I think I'll like that,” Robinson said.

“Yes, I suppose you would. Well, good luck.”

“Good luck to you, Tom.”

Marie came up and kissed Blaine goodbye with icy lips. Blaine said, “What will you do?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “I don't know. I feel so numb… Tom, must you?”

“I must,” Blaine said.

He looked around once more at the palm trees whispering under the sun, the blue expanse of the sea, and the great dark mountain above him cut with silver waterfalls. Then he turned and entered the Suicide Booth, and closed the door behind him.

There were no windows, no furniture except a single chair. The instructions posted on one wall were very simple. You just sat down, and, at your leisure, closed the switch upon the right arm. You would then die, quickly and painlessly, and your body would be left intact for the next inhabitant. Blaine sat down, made sure of the location of the switch and leaned back, his eyes closed.

He thought again about the first time he died, and wished it had been more interesting. By rights he should have rectified the error this time, and gone down like Hull, hunted fiercely across a mountain ledge at sundown. Why couldn't it have been like that? Why couldn't death have come while he was battling a typhoon, meeting a tiger's charge, or climbing Mount Everest? Why, again, would his death be so tame, so commonplace, so ordinary?

But then, why had he never really designed yachts?

An enterprising death, he realized again, would be out of character for him. Undoubtedly he was meant to die in just this quick, commonplace, painless way. And all his life in the future must have gone into the forming and shaping of this death — a vague indication when Reilly died, a fair certainty in the Palace of Death, an implacable destiny when he settled in Taiohae.

Still, no matter how ordinary, one's death is the most interesting event of one's life. Blaine looked forward eagerly to his.

He had no complaint to make. Although he had lived in the future little over a year, he had gained its greatest prize — the hereafter! He felt again what he had experienced after leaving the Hereafter Building — release from the heavy, sodden, constant, unconscious fear of death that subtly weighed every action and permeated every movement. No man of his own age could live without the shadow that crept down the corridors of his mind like some grisly tapeworm, the ghost that haunted nights and days, the croucher behind corners, the shape behind doors, the unseen guest at every banquet, the unidentified figure in every landscape, always present, always waiting —

No more!

For now the ancient enemy was defeated. And men no longer died; they moved on!

But he had gained even more than an afterlife. He had managed to squeeze and compress an entire lifetime into that year.

He had been born in a white room with dazzling lights and a doctor's bearded face above him, and a motherly nurse to feed him while he listened, alarmed, to the babble of strange tongues. He had ventured early into the world, raw and uneducated, and had stared at the oriental marvel of New York, and allowed a straight-eyed fast-talking stranger to make a fool and nearly a corpse of him, until wiser heads rescued him from his folly and soothed his pain. Clothed in his fine, strong, mysterious body he had ventured out again, wiser this time, and had moved as an equal among men equipped with glittering weapons in the pursuit of danger and honor. And he had lived through that folly, too, and still older, had chosen an honorable occupation. But certain dark omens present at his birth finally reached fruition, and he had to flee his homeland and run to the farthest corner of the Earth. Yet he still managed to acquire a family on the way; a family with certain skeletons in the closet, but his all the same. In the fullness of manhood he had come to a land he loved, taken a wife, and, on his honeymoon, seen the mountains of Moorea flaming in the sunset. He had settled down to spend his declining months in peace and useful labor, and in fond recollection of the wonders he had seen. And so he had spent them, honored and respected by all. It was sufficient. Blaine turned the switch.

37

“Where am I? Who am I? What am I?”

No answer.

“I remember. I am Thomas Blaine, and I have just died. I am now in the Threshold, a very real and completely indescribable place. I sense Earth. And ahead, I sense the hereafter.”

“Tom —”

“Marie!”

“Yes.”

“But how could you — I didn't think —”

“Well, perhaps in some ways I wasn't a very good wife, Tom. But I was always a faithful one, and I did what I did for you. I love you, Tom. Of course I would follow.”

“Marie, this makes me very happy.”

“I'm glad.”

“Shall we go on?”

“Where, Tom?”

“Into the hereafter.”

“Tom, I'm frightened. Couldn't we just stay right here for a while?”

“It'll be all right. Come with me.”

“Oh, Tom! What if they separate us? What will it be like? I don't think I'm going to like it. I'm afraid it's going to be terribly strange and ghostly and horrible.”

“Marie, don't worry. I've been a junior yacht designer three times in two lifetimes. It's my destiny! Surely it can't end here!”

“All right. I'm ready now, Tom. Let's go.”

— The End —