The Boat of a Million Years

1

At first it was as if half a century had never been. Snow-peaks gleamed against unutterable blue; in this clarity they seemed almost near enough to touch, though any of them might be fifty miles remote. A road that was little more than a track rose, fell, writhed through a darkness of deodars and gnarly wild fruit trees where langurs scampered. Then the forest opened onto pasture strewn with boulders, intensely green after the rains. Sheep and cattle grazed among stone threshing-floors. Tiny terraces carved from the valley walls bore maize, amaranth, buckwheat, barley, potatoes. A westering sun breathed a ghost of purple across the heights that looked into it, while across from them shadows lengthened, intricate over the wrinkles of the land. The air smelled of grass and glaciers.

As his mule brought him nearer the village, Wanderer began to see how much it had in fact changed. It had grown. Most of the new houses were not earth-roofed stone but timber, two or three stories high, with carved and painted galleries; it was curious to find something so tike Swiss chalets here on the knees of the Himalayas. Wires ran from a former dwelling which must house a generator, and the fuel tanks outside it also supplied a battered truck. A satellite receiver dish quite likely served more than a single communal television set. The folk were still Bhutias, essentially Tibetan stock, and men still generally wore the traditional long woolen coat, women the sleeved cloak; but he spied occasional sneakers or blue jeans, and he wondered how many people held by the mingled Buddhism, Hinduism, and animism that had been the faith of their fathers.

Herders and workers in the fields swarmed to meet him, soon joined by those who had been at home. Excitement capered and shouted. Any visit from outside was an event, and this newcomer was extraordinary. His two attendants were simply Gurkhas, familiar enough, guides to manage the animals and serve his needs, but he himself rode altogether strange, clad like a white man but broad of face and bronze of skin, his nose jutting yet his hair and eyes and cheekbones akin to theirs.

One woman, shriveled and toothless with age, made an abrupt sign against evil and scuttled from the crowd into a house. One man, equally old, drew a sharp breath before he bowed very low. They remembered his earlier call on them, Wanderer knew—when they were children and he just the same as today.

His senior Gurkha spoke with another woman, large and strong, who must be something like the mayor. She in turn addressed the villagers. A sort of calm descended. They eddied around the party, silent or talking in undertones, while it made its way through the lanes to a house at the northern edge of the settlement.

This seemed much as it had been. It remained the biggest, of stone and wood, an alien grace to its lines. Glass shone in the windows. Graveled paths twisted about the shrubs, dwarf trees, bamboo, and stones of a small, exquisite garden at the rear. The servants who emerged were of a new generation, but the man and woman who trod onto the verandah and waited were not.

Wanderer dismounted. Slowly, under awed stares and a hush, he walked to the steps and up. He bowed before the two, and they returned the gesture with equal gravity.

“Welcome,” said the man, and “Oh, boundlessly welcome!” the woman. He was Chinese, powerfully built, rather flat of countenance and without guile in it. She was Japanese, well-formed in a petite fashion, cat-alert beneath the schooled serenity. Both wore robes, simple though of the best material.

They had used Nepati, of which Wanderer had but a few words. “Thank you,” he replied in Mandarin Chinese. “I have returned as I promised.” He smiled. “This time I took the trouble to learn a language you understand.”

“Fifty years,” the woman breathed, using that tongue. “We could not be sure, we could only wait and wonder,”

“At last, at last,” the man said as shakily. He raised his voice in the tribal dialect. “I told them we will hold a feast of rejoicing tomorrow,” he explained. “Our servants will see to your men. Please come inside where we can be alone and honor you rightfully, sir—uh—”

“John Wanderer,” the American supplied.

“Why, that is what you called yourself before,” the woman said.

Wanderer shrugged. “What difference, after so long and in a foreign country? I like the name, take it again and again, and otherwise usually a version of it. Who are you being?”

“What does that matter any more?” It came as a bass cry from the man’s throat. “We are what we are, together for always.”

The room where they conferred was gracious, the furniture Chinese, a variety of objects on shelves. The pair had adventured widely before they raised up this home. That was in 1810, as nearly as Wanderer could figure from the calendar they employed. Subsequently they had absented themselves from time to time for years on end, gone to oversee the businesses that kept them prosperous, brought souvenirs back. Those included books; Tu Shan found his diversion mainly in handicrafts, but Asagao was quite a reader.

In the presence of their fellow immortal, they chose to recall those ancient names. It was as if they snatched for a handhold, now when once more their world was falling to pieces.

Nevertheless joy overrode uneasiness. “We hoped so, hoped you really were what you seemed to be,” Asagao said. “How we hoped. More than an end to loneliness. Others like us, why, that gives meaning to these lives of ours. Does it not?”

“I can’t say,” Wanderer replied. “Besides you, my friend and I know of only one who is certainly alive, and he refuses to associate himself with us. We may be mere freaks.” From the end table next his chair he lifted a cup and took a sip of the pungent local chong, followed by a mouthful of tea. They comforted.

“Surely we are on earth for a reason, however mysterious,” Asagao insisted. “At least, Tu Shan and I have tried to serve some purpose beyond surviving.”

“How did you find us, fifty years ago?” the man asked in his pragmatic way.

No real conversation had been possible then, when everything passed through an interpreter who had better not realize what meaning lay behind the words he rendered. Wanderer could just hint. Presently he thought these two had caught his intent and were doing likewise. They made it clear that they had no wish to depart, nor did they invite him to prolong his stay. Yet they were abundantly courteous, and when he risked his guide’s astonishment and suggested that he return in fifty years, their answer throbbed with eagerness. Today they all knew, past any doubt, what they were.

“I was always restless, never fond of cities, for I began as a wild plainsman,” Wanderer related. “After the first World War I set off around the world. My friend Hanno—he uses different identities, but between us he is Hanno—he had grown rich in America and gave me ample money, hoping I might come on the track of somebody like us. Nepal was not easy to reach or enter in those days, but I guessed that on that account it could harbor such persons. In Katmandu I caught rumors of a couple in the uplands who lived a kind of baronial existence among tribespeople whose benefactors and teachers they were. In spite of treating themselves well, they were considered holy. The story went that when they grew old they left on pilgrimage, and their son and his wife reappeared hi their place. Imagine how such a tale drew me.”

Asagao laughed. “Things were never so simple, of course,” she said. “Our people aren’t fools. They keep up the fiction about us because that is plainly what we want, but they know quite well that the same two come back to them. They don’t fear or envy us, their nature is to accept various lots in life. To them, yes, we are sacred and full of power, but we are also their friends. We sought long and far to find ourselves a home like this.”

“Besides,” Tu Shan grunted, “they don’t care to be overrun by worshippers, curiosity seekers, and the government and its tax collectors. At that, we have to deal with several visitors a year; more than that lately. Stories do get about. Only our distance from everything keeps them faint enough to protect us.”

Wanderer nodded. “I would probably have ignored them if I hadn’t been on the lookout. But nevertheless the modern world seems to be moving in.”

“We cannot forbear to bring what is good,” Asagao murmured. “Literacy, medicine, awareness, whatever lightens these hard lives without corrupting them too much.”

Wanderer Weakened. “It would have happened anyway, wouldn’t it? You are losing control, aren’t you?”

“I said we get more strangers all the time,” Tu Shan snapped. “And inspectors from the king. Such hardly ever sought us out before. Nor did they ask as many questions.”

“We know the country is changing, the whole world is in upheaval,” Asagao sighed. “Dear has this place been to us, but we understand that we must eventually disappear from it forever.”

“Or else become known for what you are,” Wanderer agreed low. “Do you wish that? If so, tell me. I’ll leave tomorrow, and in America change my name.” He left unspoken that he had not uttered any modern name of Hanno’s.

“We have thought of it,” Tu Shan admitted. “Sometimes in the past we made no pretense.” He paused. “But that was always among simple countryfolk, and we could always withdraw and hide again when danger threatened. I am not sure we can do that any longer.”

“You cannot, once you are found out. They will track you down if you try, for they have many means these days to hunt men. Afterward you will be slaves, no doubt well-housed and well-fed but never set free, animals for them to study.”

“Is it really that bad?”

“I fear it is,” Asagao said. To Wanderer: “We have spoken much about it, Tu Shan and I. The king of Nepal might treat us kindly, as his pet animals, but what if the Red Chinese or the Russians demand our persons?”

“At least keep your freedom,” Wanderer urged. “You can proclaim yourselves when the times look auspicious to you, but I do not think they are yet, and once you have done so, there will be no more choices.”

“Do you mean for us to go away with you?”

“I hope you will, or at any rate follow me soon. Hanno will provide for you—whatever you need that is in his power to get, and his power is great.”

“We could go,” she said slowly. “As I told you, we know how much people move about these days, and news leaps across thousands of miles. We have seen foreigners pass by and felt how they wondered about us. Even more do we feel the growing presence of the government. So in the last few decades we have begun making ready, as we did over and over in the past. We have taken care to have no children throughout that time. Our last living ones are long since settled down—we always reared them elsewhere—and believe us dead. We never enlightened them about us.” She winced. “That would have hurt too much.”

“Then the children born to two immortals are themselves mortal?” Wanderer whispered. She nodded. He shook his head, in pain of his own. “Well, Hanno and I often speculated about that.”

“I hate to go,” Tu Shan said heavily.

“Go someday we must,” Asagao answered. “We knew that from the start. Now finally we can fly straight to shelter, companionship, help. The sooner the better.”

He shifted in his chair. “I still have things to do. Our villagers will miss us, and we will miss them.”

“Always have we lost to death all those we loved. Let us instead remember these as they are today, alive. Let their memory of us fade gently into a legend that nobody else believes.”

The windows were turning blue with dusk.

2

Corinne Macandal, Mama-lo of the Unity and known to it as the daughter of its founder Laurace, halted her pacing when Rosa Donau entered. For a space the two women stood as if in confrontation. Shades drawn, the Victorian room was murkily lighted; eyeballs shone brighter than its glass or silver. Silence weighted the air, somehow made heavier by an undertone of traffic on the street outside.

After a moment Rosa said unsurely, “I’m sorry to be this late. I was out for hours. Is this a bad time? Your message on my machine was that I should come right away, without calling back.”

“No, you did well,” Corinne told her.

“What’s the matter? You look all tensed up.”

“I am. Come.” The black woman led the white into the adjoining chamber, where nobody dared enter unbidden. She ignored the arcane objects that crowded it and went directly to the coffee table. Rosa turned as usual to face the altar and touched brow, lips, breast. She had spent too many centuries appealing to saints and appeasing demons to be certain that no real power dwelt in things called holy.

Corinne picked up a magazine that lay open on the table. She handed it to the other and pointed. “Read that,” she ordered.

Also here, the light was dim. The journal was one of respectable popular scholarship, like Smithsonian or National Geographic, Corinne indicated an advertisement near the back. Under the heading LONGEVITY STUDIES stood four column inches of text. The format was staid, the words discreet; most persons who noticed would find them dry, of interest to none except specialists. They leaped at Rosa: “—very long-lived individuals in excellent health ... young but prospectively long-lived are of similar interest.... scientific studies ... recollections of history as actually experienced ...”

Her hands began to shake. “Not again,” broke from her.

Corinne started, recovered, gave her a searching look, but asked merely, “What do you make of it?”

Rosa dropped the magazine and stared down at its cover. “Probably nothing,” she mumbled. “I mean, just what it says, somebody wants to, uh, examine and talk with folks who’ve gotten really old, or who might.”

“How old?”

Rosa lifted her glance. “I tell you, it can’t have anything to do with us!” she shrilled. “There are scientists trying to get a handle on what aging is, you know?”

Corinne shook her head. “The way this is phrased, somehow it doesn’t quite fit that,” she said slowly. “And how better might immortals try to get in touch with others like them?”

“It could be a scam. Or a trap.” Desperation chattered. “Don’t write to that box number, Laurace. Don’t. We’ve got too much to lose.”

“Or to gain? What are you afraid of?”

“What could happen to us. And our work, everything we’re doing.” Rosa aimed a jerky gesture at the curtained windows. “The Unity’11 fall apart without us. What’ll become of everybody that trusts us?”

Corinne’s gaze went in the same direction, as if it pierced through to the swamp of horrible decay in which this house stood like an island. “I’m not sure we’re doing much of anything any longer.”

“We are, we are. We’re saving some, at least. If we—tell anybody what we are—that’s the end. Nothing will ever be the same again.”

Corinne swung her vision back to Rosa, tautened, and pounced. “You’ve seen something like this already, haven’t you?”

“No.” The Syrian made fending motions. “I mean, well—”

“It escaped you. It’s written on you. Neither of us has stayed alive without getting pretty good at body language. Speak, or by God, I—I will contact this Willock fellow.”

Rosa shuddered. Resistance collapsed. She swiped at tears. “I’m sorry. Yeah, yes, I did. Had almost forgotten, it was so long ago. Nothing more came of it, so I thought there was nothing to it. Till now.”

“When? Where?”

“In the papers, then. I don’t remember the date, but it was shortly before the war, World War Two, that is.”

“About fifty years ago. Maybe exactly fifty years? Go on.”

“Well, it was an ad sort of like this. Not just the same, but, well, I wondered.”

“And you kept silent? You never called it to my attention.”

“I was scared!” Rosa screamed. “Like I am now!” She stumbled to a chair, sank onto its zebra hide, and wept.

After a little while Corinne went to her, bent down, laid arms about the bowed shoulders and cheek close to cheek.

“I understand, Aliyat, dear,” she murmured. “You hadn’t been with me but a few short years. You had finally, barely won to something good, something hopeful. After those dreadful centuries—yes, of course you were terrified of any change, and the change here would have been unforeseeable. Oh, I forgive you. You may even have been right.”

She straightened. “Still,” she said most softly, “that fifty-year interval is strong evidence for another immortal. Isn’t it? He or she wouldn’t risk a continuous campaign. The short-lived would be too likely to start wondering. Our kind has time, and learns patience.”

“How do you know what they’re like?” Rosa pleaded. “They could be bad. I told you how I met two men and— well, we didn’t get along. If they’re still alive, if they’re behind this, I wouldn’t put anything past them.”

Corinne’s tone parched. “I gather you made enemies of them. You had better pull yourself together and”explain, at long last, what did happen.” She waved a hand. “Not today, as overwrought as you are. And ... yes, we must certainly stay cautious. I’ll see what I can discover about Mr. Willock before deciding whether to contact him—and how, if I do.”

She gentled again: “Meanwhile, don’t worry too much, dear. We have resources. I haven’t told you in any detail. Secrecy does become a habit, doesn’t it? Besides, this kind of thing isn’t your metier. But over the years I’ve developed my own connections, including a few persons in key official positions.” The voice clanged. “We won’t stay passive. We’re not alone any more? Then we’ve got to claim our share in the world, or else make ready to defend what is ours.”

3

The tax examiner ruffled several sheets of paper and frowned across his desk. “I think we ought to see your client in person,” he said.

“I believed I,mentioned to you, Mr. Tomek is vacationing abroad,” Hanno replied with studied edginess. “I’ve shown you my power of attorney in this matter.”

“Yes, yes. However. Naturally, you may accompany him, Mr. Levine, if he wants legal counsel at his side.”

“Why? Have you any reason to suspect wrongdoing? I assure you, each detail in each one of his enterprises is in order. Haven’t I been able to answer every single question you’ve put, these past two hours?”

“We have barely begun, Mr. Levine. I have never seen so complicated a web of transactions and interlocking arrangements.”

“Go ahead and trace them out. If you turn up anything unlawful, I’ll be totally surprised, but I’ll be on call.” Hanno drew breath. “Mr. Tomek is an old man. He’s earned a long rest and as much pleasure as is possible at his age. I don’t think you can make any case for calling him in, and if you try, I intend to protest formally, as high up the ladder as necessary.” He left implied: Your superiors won’t thank you for that.

Nasty young corporation mercenary, said the examiner’s attitude, before he sagged a bit and his gray head bent. Fleetingly, Hanno pitied him. What a hell of a way to have spent the few worthwhile decades nature doled out, harassing people in their business and always with paper, never with more than a ghost of whatever blood-joy stirred in village busybody, religious inquisitor, state secret policeman.

Hanno dismissed the feeling: He’s making me waste this afternoon, and yes, doubtless the dreariness has just started. He calculated his conciliation. “No offense. You have your duty to do. And you’ll find us entirely cooperative. But—“ try for a laugh— “I guarantee you won’t make wages.”

The auditor smiled sourly. “I admit you’ve given me what we need to conduct a preliminary check. You understand, don’t you, we accuse nobody. It would be easy to make honest mistakes in this, uh, cat’s cradle.”

“Mr. Tomek’s staff keeps close track, you know. Now if you have no further need of me today, perhaps I should leave you to your work.”

He ought to be calmer, inside as well as outside, Hanno thought when he left. There was nothing worse to fear than a dismal nuisance, because Charles Tomek’s affairs were in truth defensible. Every last one of the many steps by which a gross income of millions became a taxable income of some hundred thousands, was legal. Let IRS try its meanest. Not only governments could use computers. Human beings could.

And Washington had no state income tax yet. That had been one strong reason among many for moving to Seattle. For that matter, he hadn’t really shot the afternoon. Thinking he might, he had made no other commitments; much of die long summer day remained for him to enjoy.

Nevertheless the session rankled. He knew why. I’ve been spoiled, he thought. Once this was a free country. Oh, I always knew that couldn’t last, that here too things were bound to grind back to the norm—masters and serfs, whatever names they go by. And so far we continue happier than most of the world ever was. But damn, modern democracy has the technology to regiment us beyond anything Caesar, Torquemada, Suleyman, or Louis XIV dared dream of.

He sighed, standing in the elevator, suppressing the wish for a smoke although he was alone. Quite apart from the laws that multiplied around him tike bacteria, he owed consideration to the lungs of poor, vulnerable mortals. Indeed, be hadn’t brought his tax liability down as far as he could have. A man who lived in a country ought to contribute his fair share to its maintenance and defense. Everything else was extortion.

John Wanderer disagrees, Hanno reflected. He speaks of human needs, threatened biosphere, scientific mysteries, and says it’s romanticism to suppose private enterprise can cope with them all. No doubt he’s right to some extent. But where do you draw the line?

Maybe I’ve been around too long, maybe it’s prejudiced me. But I remember, for example, those glorious public works that government gave to Egypt, century after century, and how they benefitted the people—pyramids, statues of Rameses II, grain tribute to Rome, Aswan Dam. I remember small shops I’ve closed, men and women thrown out of jobs, because the regulations and required record-keeping changed them to losing propositions.

He came forth into downtown. A wind, strong and cold, thrust odors of salt water through automobile stench. Sunlight spilled from heaven. Crowds bustled. A street musician fiddled a tune he liked, to judge by his stance and his face. The wind flapped the skirts of a particularly delicious girl, as brave a sight as Old Glory on her staff above one building. The vitality caught at Hanno, blew the darkness out of him.

For a minute, practicality lingered. He must consider seriously, and soon, phasing out Charles Tomek. Death and cremation abroad, widower, childless, assets willed to various individuals and certain foundations. ... In due course Toraek’s pet lawyer had better move away, drop out of sight. That would be much simpler to arrange; hundreds or thousands of men hi the United States must bear the name Joseph Levine ... And the dozen additional identities in four different countries, ranging from magazine publisher to day laborer, yes, they ail needed attention. Those which he had created as boltholes, mere camouflage, against a day of need, probably remained safe. Others, though, were for diversification, so he could be active, carry out his undertakings and investments, without making any of them unduly noticeable; and by now some of them, such as Tannahill, were becoming so. How long could he keep up the dance?

How long did he actually wish to? He well understood that his resentment of the modem state sprang in large part from its erosion of privacy; and privacy, like liberty, was a pretty new and fragile idea. Gods damn it, he was a seaman, he wanted a deck again under his feet. But for most of the twentieth century,he had only been able to operate, if he would keep his secret, in offices, by mail and wire and telephone and computer, chasing paper profits, hardly better off—except for his yachts, women, feasts, luxuries, travels, and the hunt that was his ultimate purpose in life—hardly better off than that poor publican, his enemy.

To what end? Wealth? It was a Phoenician’s way to strength. But how much strength would he ever find use for? No amount of money would stave off a nuclear warhead. At best, it would buy refuge for him and his, and the means to start over once the ashes had settled. For that, a million or two dollars were ample. Meanwhile, why not shut down his businesses hi the course of the next ten or a dozen years, then take a holiday for whatever time this civilization hung together? Didn’t he deserve it?

Did his comrades want that, though? They were so earnest hi their different ways, those three. And, of course, any day his renewed search might turn up others. Or anything else might happen.

The wind whooped. Suddenly Hanno laughed aloud with it. He ignored the stares he got. Maybe living through history had made him a touch paranoid. Yet he had also learned from it that every hour of freedom was a precious gift, to be savored in fullness and stored away where thieves could not break in and steal. Here half a beautiful afternoon and a whole evening had fallen into his hands. What to do with them?

A drink in the revolving bar on the Space Needle? The view of mountains and water was incomparable, and Lord knew ‘when the next clear day would happen along. No. This past interview had driven him too much into himself. He desired companionship. Natalia was still at work, pridefully and wisely declining to let nun support her. Tu Shan and Asagao were afar in Idaho, John Wanderer in the Olympics on one of his backpacking trips. He could drop into, say, Ernmett Watson’s for a beer and some oysters and general friendliness—no, the danger of meeting a self-appointed poet was too great. Jokes aside, he didn’t feel like chitchat with somebody he’d never see again.

That left a single possibility; and he hadn’t visited Gian-notti’s lab for quite a spell. Nothing spectacular could have happened there or he’d have been notified, but it was always interesting to get a personal progress report.

By the time of that decision, Hanno had reached the lot where he left the Buick registered to Joe Levine. He considered driving straight to his destination. Surely no one had put a tail on him. But accidents could happen, and sometimes did. Immortality made caution a habit. Moreover, he intended to end up with Natalia. Therefore he bucked through traffic to Levine’s place near the International District. It had parking of its own. In the apartment he opened a concealed safe and exchanged Levine’s assorted identification cards for Robert Cauldwell’s. A taxi brought him to a public garage where Cauldwell rented a space. Entering the Mitsubishi that waited, he returned to the streets.

He liked this tightly purring machine much better. Damn, it seemed only yesterday that Detroit was making the best cars for their price on earth.

His goal was a plain brick building, a converted warehouse, in a tight-industry section between Green Lake and the University campus. A brass plate on its door read RUFUS MEMORIAL INSTITUTE. Those who asked were told that Mr. Rufus had been a friend of Mr. Cauldwell, the shipowner who endowed this laboratory for fundamental biological science. That satisfied their curiosity. The work being done interested them much more, emphasizing as it did molecular cytology and the effort to discover what made living beings grow old.

It had been a plausible way for Cauldwell to dispose of his properties and retire into obscurity. Two magnate identities were more than Hanno could maintain after the government got thoroughly meddlesome. Tomek was pulling in the most money by then, and leaving less of a trail. Besides, this might offer a hope—

Director Samuel Giannotti was at his workbench. The staff was small though choice, administration was kept to an unfussy minimum, and he continued to be a practicing scientist. When Hanno arrived, he took time to shut down his experiment properly before escorting the founder to his office. It was a book-lined room as comfortably rumpled-look-ing as his large, bald-headed self. A swivel chair stood available for each man. Giannotti fetched Scotch from a cabinet, ice and soda from a fridge, and mixed mild drinks while Hanno charged his pipe.

“I wish you’d .give that foul thing up,” Giannotti said, settling down. His voice was amicable. The seat creaked to his weight. “Where’d you get it, anyway? From King Tutankhamen?”

“Before my time,” Hanno drawled. “Do you mind? I know you’ve quit, but I didn’t expect you’d take the Chris-ter attitude of so many ex-smokers.”

“No, in my line of work we get used to stenches.”

“Good. How’s that line go from Chesterton?”

“’If there is one thing worse than the modern weakening of major morals it is the modern strengthening of minor morals,’” quoted Giannotti, who was a devotee. “Or else, later in the same essay, ‘It is the great peril of our society that all its mechanism may grow more fixed while its spirit grows more fickle.’ Not that I’ve often heard you worry about morals or the spirit.”

“I don’t worry aloud about the oxygen supply, either—”

“Obviously.”

“—or the other necessities of survival. It would annoy me less that we’re heading into a new puritanical era if the puri-tanism concerned itself about things that matter.” Hanno struck match to tobacco and drew the fire alight.

“Well, I worry about you. Okay, your body has recovered from traumas that would have finished off any of us ordinaries, but that doesn’t mean your immortality is absolute. A bullet or a swig of cyanide would kill you as easily as me. I’m not at all convinced your cells can stand that kind of chemical insult forever.”

“Pipe smokers don’t inhale, and for me cigarettes are faute de mieux.” Hanno’s brows knotted slightly. “Just the same ... do you have any solid scientific reason for what you said?”

“No,” Giannotti admitted. “Not yet.”

“What are you turning up lately, if anything?”

Giannotti sipped from his glass. “We’ve learned of some very interesting work in Britain. Fairweather at Oxford. It looks as though the rate at which cellular DNA loses methyl groups is correlated with lifespan, at least in the animals that have been studied. Jaime Escobar here is setting up to pursue this line of inquiry further. I myself will re-examine cells of yours from the same viewpoint, with special reference to glycosylation of proteins. On the QT, of course. I’d like fresh material from the four of you, blood, skin, biopsy sample of muscle tissue, to start new cultures for the purpose.”

“Any time you want, Sam. But what does this signify, exactly?”

“You mean ‘What might it signify, at a guess?’ We know little thus far. Well, I’ll try to sketch it out for you, but I’ll have to repeat stuff I’ve told you before.”

“That’s all right. I am a simon-pure layman. My basic thought habits were formed early in the Iron Age. Where it comes to science, I can use plenty of repetition.”

Giannotti leaned forward, caught up in his quest. “The British themselves aren’t sure. Maybe the demethylation is due to cumulative damage to the DNA itself, maybe the methylase enzyme becomes less active in the course of time, maybe something else. In any event, it may—at the present stage this is only a suggestion, you understand—it may result in deterioration of mechanisms that hitherto kept certain other genes from expressing themselves. Maybe those genes become free to produce proteins that have poisoning effects on still other cellular processes.”

“The checks and balances begin to break down,” Hanno said mutedly, through a cloud of blue smoke.

“Probably true, but that’s so vague and general a statement, practically a tautology, as to be useless.” Giannotti sighed. “Now don’t imagine that we have more than a single piece of the jigsaw puzzle here, if we have that much. And it’s a puzzle in three dimensions, or four, or n, with the space not necessarily Euclidean. For instance, your regeneration of parts as complex as teeth implies more than freedom from senescence. It indicates retention of juvenile, even fetal characteristics, not in the gross anatomy but probably on the molecular level. And that fantastic immune system of yours must tie in somehow, too.”

“Yeah.” Hanno nodded. “Aging isn’t a single, simple thing. It’s a whole clutch of different ... diseases, all with pretty much the same symptoms, like flu or cancer.”

“Not quite, I think,” Giannotti replied. They had been over the same ground more than once, but the Phoenician was right about his need for that. He must have won to a terrifying degree of knowledge about himself, Giannotti sometimes thought. “There does appear to be a common factor in the case of every mortal organism with more than a single cell—and maybe the unicellulars too, maybe even the prokaryotes and viruses—if only we can find what it is. Conceivably this demethylatibn phenomenon gives us a clue to it. Anyhow, that’s my opinion. I concede my grounds are more or less philosophical. Something as biologically fundamental as death ought to be in the very fabric of evolution, virtually from the beginning.”

“Uh-huh. Advantage to the species, or, I should say, the line of descent. Get the older generations out of the way, make room for genetic turnover, allow more efficient types to develop. Without death, we’d still be bits of jelly in the sea.”

“There may be something to that.” Giannotti shook his head. “But it can’t be the whole story. It doesn’t account for humans outliving mice by an order of magnitude, for instance. Or species that live indefinitely, like bristlecone pines.” Weariness dragged at his smile. “No, most likely life has adapted itself to the fact, made the best it could of the fact, that sooner or later, one way or another, entropy will ring down the curtain on its wonderful chemical juggling act. Whether your kind represents the next step in evolution, a set of mutations that created a fail-safe system, I can’t say.”

“But you don’t think so, do you?” Hanno asked. “We don’t breed true.”

“No, you don’t,” Giannotti said with a barely perceptible wince. “However, that may come. Evolution is cut-and-try. If I may anthropomorphize,” he added. “Often it’s hard not to.”

Hanno clicked his tongue. “You know, when you say things like that, I have trouble believing you’re a believing Catholic.”

“Separate spheres,” Giannotti answered. “Ask any competent theologian. And I wish you would, for your own sake, you poor lonely atheist.” Quickly: “The point is, the material world and the spirit world are not identical.”

“And we’ll, outlive the galaxies, you and I and everybody,” he had said once toward dawn, when the bottle was low. “You may spend ten thousand years, or a million or a billion, in the flesh, but it will hardly mean more, then, than the three days that a premature baby had. Maybe less; the baby died innocent... But this is a fascinating problem, and it does have unlimited potentialities for the whole world, if we can solve it. Your existence cannot be a mere stochastic accident.”

Hanno didn’t argue, though lie preferred their everyday banter, or straightforward talk about the work. He had found after years- of acquaintance that here was one of the rare people whom he could trust with his secret; and in this case it might, just possibly, bring an end to the need for secrecy. If Sam Giannotti could endure knowing of lives that went on for millennia, and keep silent about them even with his wife, because of a faith whose elements Hanno remembered as having been ancient in Hiram’s Tyre—so be it.

“But never mind,” the scientist went on. “What I wish more, right now and always, is the same as ever. That you’d release me from my promise and let me make known—or better, make known yourself—what you are.”

“Sorry,” Hanno said. “Must I repeat why not?”

“Cast off that suspiciousness, can’t you? I forget how many times I’ve told you, the Middle Ages are behind us. Nobody will burn you for a witch. Show the world the proofs you showed me.”

“I’ve learned to be leery of doing anything irrevocable.”

“Will I never make you understand? I’m shackled. I can’t so much as tell my staff the truth. We piddle around and— If you come out of the closet, Bob, discovering the immortality mechanism will become the human race’s top priority. Every resource will go to it. The knowledge that it is possible is half the battle, I swear. They might crack it inside of ten years. Meanwhile, can’t you see the dying down of war, arms races, terrorism, despotism, given such a prospect before everyone? How many needless deaths can you stand to have on your conscience?”

“And I’ve told you before, I doubt the outcome would be anything like that sweet,” Hanno snapped. “Three thousand years of experience, as close as makes no difference, say otherwise. An overnight revelation like that would upset too many applecarts.”

He had no cause to repeat how he controlled the veto. If and when necessary, he would dispose of the things he had used to convince Giannotti. John Wanderer, Tu Shan, and Asagao were accustomed to following his lead, he far and away their senior. Should one of them rebel and reveal, that person possessed no evidence of the kind that Hanno had assembled. After forty or fifty years of. observation, people might take the claim seriously; but why would an immortal spend so great a while in custody? Richelieu had been right, three and a half centuries ago. The risks were too large. If your body stayed youthful, you kept a young animal’s strong desire to live.

Giannotti sank back into his chair. “Oh, hell, let’s not rehash a stale argument,” he muttered. Louder: “I do ask you to put that pessimism and cynicism of yours aside and think again. When everybody can have your lifespan, you’ll have no more reason to hide.”

“Sure,” Hanno agreed. “Why d’you suppose I founded this place? But let the change come gradually, with forewarning. Give me and my friends and the world time to prepare. Meanwhile, you said it, the argument has long since gone moldy.”

Giannotti laughed, as a man may laugh when he can lower a burden from his shoulders. “Okay. Shop talk and gossip. What’s new with you?”

Time goes fast in congenial company. The hour was past six when Hanno pulled up in front of CauldwelTs house.

The unpretentious building on Queen Anne Hill had a magnificent view. He stood for a minute and savored it. Beneath a westering sun the distant mountains seemed to glimmer only half real, as if they rose in a dream or in elfiand. Southward, beyond the slim silhouette of the Space Needle, the light turned Elliot Bay to molten silver and touched treetops with gold. Farther on, Rainier bulwarked heaven, blue rock-mass and white purity. Air went cool into breath. Traffic noises were a whisper, and a robin loosed scraps of melody. Yes, he thought, this was a lovely planet, an Aladdin’s hoard of wonders. Too bad how humans mucked it up. Nevertheless he intended to stick around.

A bit reluctantly, he went inside. Natalia Thurlow was there and the door not locked. She sat before the television watchingthe news. A jowly face and beaky nose filled the screen. The voice was lubricated, sonorous:

“—join in your noble cause. It is the cause of men and women of good will everywhere. This squandering of untold wealth on weapons of mass destruction, while human beings go hungry and homeless, must end, and end soon. I pledge myself—“ The view panned back to show a packed auditorium. On the stage, American and Soviet flags flanked Edmund Moriarty. The United Nations banner was spread directly behind, and a streamer above read CONCERNED CITIZENS’ COMMITTEE FOR PEACE.

“Judas priest!” Hanno groaned. “Do you want me to barf on our nice new carpet?”

Natalia turned the set off and came to give him a hug and a kiss. He responded energetically. She was a rangy blond in her mid-thirties who knew well how to please him, not least by being an independent sort.

Having disengaged, she ran ringers through the hair he had rumpled. “Hey, big boy, you came out of that bad mood in a hurry,” she laughed. “Not quite so fast, if you please. Dinner won’t wait for more than a short drink. I expected you earlier.” Usually she cooked. Hanno was good at it, but she found it relaxing after a day of working on computer software. She cocked her head. “Of course, afterward—”

“Well, all I want is a beer,” he said. “Sam and I hoisted a couple at the lab.”

“What? I thought you had less fun in prospect.”

“So did I, but I got out of die Internal Reaming Service sooner than I feared.” He had mentioned he was in for such a session, though not the identities actually involved. He sought the kitchen. She had already poured herself a sherry.

Returning with his mug of Ballard Bitter to sit down on the couch beside her, he found she had gone serious, half angry. “Bob,” she said, “I insist you quit making nasty cracks about the government. Sure, it has its faults, including heavy-handedness, but it is ours.”

“’Government of the people, by the people, and for the people.’ Yeah. Trouble is, the three classes of people aren’t the same.”

“I’ve heard you on the subject before, in case you’ve forgotten. If you’re right about that being the nature of government, why bitch at this one? It is the only thing that stands between us and what is far worse.”

“Not if Senator Moriarty has his way.”

“Wait a minute,” she said sharply. “You’re entitled to call him mistaken, but not to call him ... a traitor, the way I’ve heard you imply. He speaks for millions of perfectly decent Americans.”

“So they imagine. His real constituency is industries that vote their tariff protections and subsidies, bums who vote their handouts, and intellectuals who vote their slogans. As for mis new-found pacifism of his, that’s the current fashion. Before, his breed was always hell-bent to get us into foreign wars, except that we mustn’t win any that were fought against Communists. Now he’s picking up extra votes— someday they may help him into the White House—by telling us that violence never settles anything. If only the city fathers of Carthage could talk to bun.”

She put irritation aside and riposted with a grin, “Plagiarizing Heinlein, are you?”

He had come to admire the deftness with which she could defuse a quarrel. They’d had too many lately. Chuckling, he relaxed. “You’re right, I am a fool to waste good drinking time on politics, especially when it’s in the company of a sexy woman.”

Inwardly there passed through him: He may have delivered himself into my hands, though. I’ll get a tape of the proceedings tomorrow. If they went as I imagine, well, the next issue of The Chart Room is almost ready to go to press. I barely have time to pull TannahuTs editorial and slip in another that’ll be pure Schadenfreude to write.

Natalia laid a hand over his. “You’re pretty sexy yourself, for your information,” she said. “Horrible old reactionary, but if word got around about what you’re like in bed, I’d have to fight the women off with a shillelagh.”

Her smile faded. She sat quiet a while before adding softly, “No, I take that first part back. I think you’re down on governments because you’ve seen victims of their blunders and, yes, cruelties. It would be better if you were in charge. Under that crusty exterior, you’re fine and considerate.”

“And too smart to want power,” he interpolated.

“And you are not old, either,” she went on. “Not in any way that counts.”

“Sixty-seven, last time I looked.” At Robert Cauldwell’s birth certificate. “I could be your father, or your grandfather if my son and I had been a tad precocious.” I could be your hundredfold-great-grandfather. Quite possibly I am.

He felt her gaze on him, but didn’t meet it. “When / look, I see a person who appears younger than me. It’s eerie.”

“Persistent ancestors, I’ve told you.” A bottle of hair dye, to pretend indulgence of that small vanity. “I’ve also told you you should start shopping for a newer model. I honestly don’t want it to get too late for you.”

“We’ll see.” A single time in their three-year union had she suggested marriage. Were he using a different, younger personality he might well have gone through with it. As was, he couldn’t explain what a dirty trick on her it would be.

The thought flitted through him that if he did make known what he was and Giannotti’s estimate of the rate of progress thereafter proved right, Natalia could become immortal herself. Probably rejuvenated, too; given such a command of biochemistry, that ought to be easy. But while he was fond of her, he had not permitted himself to fall really in love for centuries; and he didn’t feel ready to unleash incalculable consequences on the world. Not this evening, at least.

She put on gaiety. “Who’s your Danish pen pal?”

He blinked. “What?”

“In today’s mail. Otherwise nothing special— Hey, important, is it?”

His heart thudded. “I’ll see. Excuse me a minute.”

He’d not thought about the post. It lay on a corner table. As he took the envelope postmarked Copenhagen, he saw the printed name and address of a hotel and, hand-written above it, “Helmut Seeker.”

His agent in Frankfurt, receiving responses to an advertisement published throughout northern Europe, then following up on any that seemed to come from a person who might fit his requirements—of course, Becker had merely been told that the Rufus Lab wanted to contact members of long-lived families; if they were young but showed intelligence, as evinced by an interest in history, that was ideal—

Hanno forced his mouth and hands into steadiness. He opened the letter. It was in stilted English, but there was no reason Natalia shouldn’t read it. She knew about the project, considered the approach unscientific but tolerated it together with the rest of his eccentricities. In fact, he should give her every appearance of openness, to hide the excitement that roared within him. “Apparently I’ve got a little trip ahead of me,” he told her.

4

They were friendly folks in the Lost River country, and besides, Chinese farmers had always done well throughout Idaho. So when Mr. and Mrs. Tu became tenants of the property that Tomek Enterprises owned, neighbors made them welcome. Their background was interesting to hear about, he a small landowner in Taiwan, she the daughter of a Japanese trade representative there. Marriages tike that faced.problems in Asia, even this long after the war. Also, they had some difficulties with the Kuomintang government, nothing terrible but enough to make them feel restricted and harassed. Through her family they met Mr. Tomek himself, who arranged for them to come to America. At first their Engtish was broken, but they soon became pretty good at it. Still, they never quite fitted in. They managed the fields and herds well. They kept the house spic and span, and if some things in it were kind of odd, you had to expect that. They were well-behaved, polite, helpful. However, they held themselves back, joined no church or social club or anything, got along in company but didn’t really open up, repaid invitations with fine food and pleasant conversation but took no lead in sociability. Well, they were Orientals, and maybe that made them feel sensitive about having had no children.

After six years they did stir gossip and uneasiness. They’d gone off on vacations from time to time, like most people, except that they said practically nothing about where it was to or what they’d done. Now they came back with a pair of youngsters from Chicago, slum kids, been in trouble, one of them black. It wasn’t an adoption, the Tus explained; they simply aimed to see what a real home in a healthy environment could do. They had letters to show this was okay with the authorities.

Their neighbors worried about mischief, misleading of their own children, maybe drugs. Edith Harmon, who was a forceful lady, took it upon herself to call when Shan was away and have a heart-to-heart talk with Asagao. “I understand yonr feelings, dear, and it’s kind of you, but we have so much do-gooding these days.”

Asagao smiled and asked, “Is do-badding better?” She went on at once: “I promise you it will be all right. My husband and I have guided lives before now.”

“Really?”

“It gives meaning to ours. Or perhaps you have heard about the Buddhist concept of acquiring merit. Here, let me warm that coffee for you.”

And it did succeed. There was a little friction at first, especially in school. The boy got into a couple of fights, the girl was caught shoplifting. Their fosterers straightened them out fast and thoroughly. Shan might not be the smartest man alive, but he was no dummy either, and he had a way of getting others to do what he wanted that did not come just from great physical strength. Asagao was quiet, gentle, and—the neighborhood discovered—sharp as a tack. The kids worked hard on the ranch and soon worked hard in school. They became popular. After four years they left, of an age and qualified to take jobs waiting for them elsewhere. Folks missed them, and didn’t object to the new waifs who then arrived. Instead, the community felt proud.

The Tus didn’t go looking for children. They told how they had been appalled at what they read or saw on TV, afterward witnessed for themselves. Inquiring around, they came on an outfit, small but with branches in several big cities, that tried to make placements. Mutual trust developed. The original experience showed what they had to offer and what sort of kids would likely benefit from it. After that, the organization chose and sent.

Shan and Asagao figured three at a time was as much as they could rightly handle, and not if those all came at once. So two years had passed when they got the third member of the second group. She was a fourteen-year-old from New York. They met her at the Pocatello airport and drove her back to their place.

To start with, Juanita was a handful and a half, nervous as a trapped bobcat, often sullen, sometimes exploding in screams and curses that shocked the ranch hands. They had learned patience and firmness, though. The youngsters already there had gotten to a point where they too were a steadying, calming force. Above all, the married couple was, and also the beautiful land, open air, honest labor, hearty food. It helped that this was summer; Juanita didn’t have school to cope with as well. Soon she was turning into quite the little lady.

One day Asagao asked her to come along, the two of them alone, and help pick berries in a hidden nook of the hills, more than an hour away on horseback. They packed a lunch and took their tune. On the way home, shy young dreams began to reach lips. Asagao well knew how to keep talk aflow without pushing.

Yesterday a thunderstorm had broken a hot spell. The air was full of wayward breezes and soft smells. Light was lengthening from the west, but still held that upland brilliance which made the mountains seem almost next door and yet left you feeling what a vastness you looked across. Clouds towered white into dizzying depths of blue. The valley rolled in a thousand shades of green, twinkly with irrigation, on and on toward the orchards and ranch buildings. Red-winged blackbirds darted and cried over the pasture, and cattle near the fence line lifted large eyes to watch the horses pass. Leather squeaked, hoofs plopped, riding was oneness in a lazy sweet rhythm.

“I really would like to learn about your religion, Mrs. Tu,” Juanita said. She was a dark, thin girl who walked with a limp. Her father used to beat her, as he did her mother, till at last she put a kitchen knife in his shoulder and ran off. In the saddle she was on her way to centaurhood, and corrective surgery was scheduled for later this year. Meanwhile she did her share of chores, assigned to allow for the handicap. “It must be wonderful if—“ she flushed, glanced aside, dropped her voice—“if it’s got believers like you and Mr. Tu.”

Asagao smiled. “Thank you, love, though we are quite ordinary, you know. I think you had better get back into your own church. Of course we’ll be glad to explain what we can. All our children have been interested. But what we live by can’t actually be put in words. It’s very alien to this country. It might not even be a religion by your standards, but more a way of life, of trying to get in harmony with the universe.”

Juanita gave her a quick, searching regard. “Like the Unity?”

“The what?”

“The Unity. Where I come from. Except they—they couldn’t take me. I asked a guy who belongs, but he said it’s ... a lifeboat as full as it can carry.” A sigh. “Then I got lucky and got found by—for—you. I think prob’ly this is better. You’ll fix me to go live anyplace. The Unity, you stay with it. I think. But I don’t know much about it. They don’t talk, the members.”

“Your friend must have, if you heard about it.”

“Oh, word gets around. The dope dealers, now, they hate it. But I guess it’s only in the New York area. And like I said, the higher you go in it, the less you tell. Manuel, he’s too young. He grew up in it, his parents did too, but they say he’s not ready yet. He doesn’t know much except about the housing and education and—well, members help each other.”

“That sounds good. I have heard of such organizations.”

“Oh, this isn’t a co-op exactly, and it’s not like, uh, the Guardian Angels, except for what they call sentinel stance, and— It’s sort of like a church, except not that either.

Members can believe anything they want, but they do have—services? Retreats? That’s how come I wondered if this was like the Unity.”

“No, can’t be. We’re simply a family. We wouldn’t have any idea how to run anything larger.”

“I guess that’s why the Unity stopped growing,” Juanita said thoughtfully. “Mama-lo can only keep track of so much.”

“Mama-lo?”

“The name I’ve heard. She’s kind of a—a high priestess? Except it isn’t a church. But they say she’s real powerful. They do what she wants, in the Unity.”

“Hm. How long has this been going on?”

“I don’t know. A long time. I heard the first Mama-lo was the mother of this one, or was she the grandmother? A black woman, though I hear she’s got a white woman works close with her, always has had.”

“This is fascinating,” Asagao said. “Do go on.”

Evenings after dinner were usually for being together. Foster parents and children talked, played games, sat quietly reading. Sometimes they watched the single television set, but only by mutual consent, subject to adult overrule. A person who wished to be alone could withdraw to his or her room with a book or pursue a hobby in the little workshop. Thus the hour was late when Tu Shan and Asagao walked out. They ranged widely and were gone long. Nevertheless they spoke in Chinese. To be sure, their dialect of it still came most easily to them of the tongues they had mutually mastered in their centuries.

Night lay cool and still. Land reached shadowy, treetops loomed darkling beneath the extravagant stars of the high West. Once an owl hooted, repeatedly, before ghosting past.

“They could so well be our kind.” Asagao’s tone shivered. “Something built up slowly, over generations, yet centered on one or two individuals, who talk about being mother and child but remain mysterious and work in the same style. We two were chiefs, under one title or another, of different villages; our businesses in the cities were incidental. Hanno made his businesses into his power, protection, and disguise. Here may be a third way. Down among the poor, the rootless, the disinherited. Give them leadership, counsel, purpose, hope. In return they will provide you your little kingdom, or queendom; and there you can Uve safe, hidden, for mortal lifetimes.”

“It may be,” Tu Shan replied in the slow fashion that was his when he thought hard. “Or perhaps not. We will write to Hanno. He will investigate.”

“Or should we do that?”

“What?” He checked his stride, startled. “He knows how. We are countryfolk, you and I.”

“Will he not keep these immortals underground, as he has kept Wanderer and us, as he would keep that Turk did the man not stay aside on his own account?”

“Well, he has explained why.”

“How sure are we that he is right?” Asagao demanded. “You know how I have studied. I have talked with that learned man, Giannotti, whenever he examined us again. Do we truly need to go on beneath our masks? It was not always necessary for us in Asia. It never was for Wanderer among his wild Indians. Is it in America today? Times have changed. If we made ourselves known, it could well mean immortality for everyone within a few years.”

“Maybe it would not. And what then would people do to us?”

“I know. I know. And yet—r Why must we take it for granted that Hanno is right? Why shouldn’t we decide for ourselves whether he is the wisest because he is the oldest, or else has grown set in his ways and now is making a horrible mistake, out of needless fear and ... utter selfishness?”

“M-m-m—”

“At worst we die.” Asagao lifted her head against the stars. “We die like everybody else, except that we have had so many, many years. I am not afraid to. Are you?”

“No.” Tu Shan laughed a bit. “I dislike the thought, yes, I admit that.” Sobering: “We do have to tell him about this Unity thing. He has the means, the knowledge, to find out. We don’t.”

Asagao nodded. “True.” After a moment: “But once we nave learned whether or not these are like us—”

“We owe Hanno much.” Entry to this nation, through Tomek’s influence over a certain Congressman. Help in getting acquainted with it. Establishment here, once they realized that American cities would never be for them.

“We do. We also owe humanity much, I think. And ourselves. Freedom to choose is our right too.”

“Let us see what happens,” Tu Shan proposed.

They walked on a while in silence. A bright rapid star rose in the west and crossed the lower constellations. “Look,” Tu Shan said. “A satellite. This is an age of marvels.”

“I believe that is Mir,” she answered slowly.

“What? ... Oh, yes. The Russian one.”

“The space station. The only space station. And the United States, since Challenger—“ Asagao had no further need to speak. As long as they had lived together, they could each often follow what was in the other’s mind. Dynasties flourish and fall. Empires do, nations, peoples, destinies.

5

“—And may holiness be with your good angels. Let the Fire burn strong and the Rainbow bear peace. Go now toward God. Fare you well.”

Rosa Donau raised her hands in benediction, brought them over her bosom, and bowed to the cross that stood on the altar before her between the red and the black candles in their lily-shaped holders. Opposite, her fellow celebrants did likewise. They were a score, male and female, mostly dark of skin and gray of hair, elders of the families that would be living here. The service had lasted an hour, simple words, chants to a drum-beat, a sacred dance, hypnotic in its very restraint and softness. The gathering departed without speaking, though several threw her wide smiles and a number signed themselves.

She remained for a time, sought a chair and a deeper calm. As yet, the chapet was sparsely furnished. Behind the altar hung a picture of Jesus, more gaunt and stern than was common although his hand was upraised in blessing. Painted directly on plaster, the Serpent of Life encircled Mm. It was flanked by emblems that could be of the loas or the saints, however you wished. The symbols right and left could be luck, magic, sanctity, or—just encouragement, she knew; lift up your heart, honor with bravery the life that is in you.

Here was no doctrine but the sacredness of creation be- cause of the Creator’s presence in it, no commandment but loyalty to your kindred of the spirit. The animistic, pantheistic imagery was only a language for saying that. The rites were only to evoke it and to bind the kindred together. You could believe whatever else you thought must be true. Yet not since she was a maiden, fourteen hundred years ago, had Aljyat felt such power as lingered here.

Within her, if not in the altar or the air. Hope, cleansing, purpose, something she could give instead of forever taking or squandering. Was that why Corinne had asked her to lead the consecration of this building?

Or was Corinne simply too occupied with the question of who, or what, laired behind that innocent-seeming call to the long-lived? She had certainly gone close-mouthed. Al-iyat knew merely that she soon learned the Willock named was no more than an agent under the impression he was handling matters for a scientific outfit. (Could that even be true?) Maybe Corinne had asked those contacts of hers in the government, police, FBI, whoever and wherever they were, to look into the matter. No, probably not; too dangerous; it might alert them to the fact that Maraa-lo Macan-dal was not all she seemed...

Well, not to worry, she had said; and a hard life did teach a girl how to concentrate on what was close to hand. Aliyat sighed, rose, blew out the candles, turned off the lights as she left. The chapel was on the second floor. Besides making it fit for use, workers had rebuilt the rotting staircase to the hallway outside it; but otherwise, so far they were occupied elsewhere. A naked bulb glared on peeling, discolored plaster. This was a nasty district, way down on the lower west side. However, here the Unity could cheaply acquire an abandoned tenement bouse for its members to restore to decency. She couldn’t help wondering whether there would ever be more such undertakings. Let it get bigger and it would become too noticeable, and beyond the control of that pair whose cover and stronghold it was. Nonetheless, people who belonged were bound to grow up, marry, have children.

She descended to a jumble of equipment and materials in the lobby. The night watchman rose to greet her. Another man got up too, young, big, ebony-hued. Aliyat recognized Randolph Castle. “Good evenin’, Missus-lo Rosa,” he rumbled. “Peace an’ strength.”

“Why, hello,” she replied, surprised. “Peace and strength. What are you doing here so late?”

“Thought I’d walk you back. Figured you might stay on after the rest had left.”

“That’s very kind of you.”

“Just bein’ careful,” he said grimly. “We don’t wanna lose you.”

They bade the watchman goodnight and went out. The street was poorly lit, its murk apparently empty, but you never knew what might wait in those shadows and taxis didn’t cruise the area. Her place wasn’t far, a light housekeeping room in the Village. However, she was glad to have formidable company.

“Wanted to talk with you anyway,” he said once they had started off. “If you don’t mind.”

“No, of course not. That’s a main part of what I’m for, isn’t it?”

He must force the words out. “No pers’nal troubles this time. It’s for ever’body. Only I don’t know as how we can tell Mama-lo.”

Aliyat brushed fingers across his clenched fist. “Go on,” she urged gently. “Whatever you say will be safe with me.”

“I know. Oh, I know.” She had heard his confession of wrongdoing and helped him set matters right. After a number of hollowly thudding footfalls: “Look, Mama-lo don’t relize how bad this area is. None of us did, or I guess we wouldnYve bought into it. But I been findin’ out.”

“Crime, drug dealing. We’ve handled those before. What else?”

“Nothin’. But these dealers, they’re mean. They know ‘bout us an’ they don’t intend we should get no foothold here, no ways.”

Chill struck through her. She had met absolute evil in century after century, and knew its power.

Once she had laughed this presence of it off. “Who cares, as long as we keep our own people clean?” she said. “Let others wreck themselves if they want. You smuggled in booze and ran speakeasies during Prohibition. I did pretty much the same. Whafs the difference?”

“I’m surprised you don’t know better than to ask that,”

Corinne answered. She paused. “Well, you’ve been trying hard to steer clear of everything wicked. Listen, dear. The stuff that’s coming in these days is different. We say nothing in the Unity against taking an occasional drink, we use wine in some of our ceremonies, but we teach our members not to get drunk. You cannot not lose your mind to stuff like crack. And ... the old gangsters could get vicious enough, I’m not sure now that I should ever have condoned their business, but compared to the dealers today they were the Holy Innocents.” Her fingers writhed together. “Today it’s like the slave trade come back.”

That was years ago, when things were only starting to get bad. Aliyat had learned since then. And the Unity took action at each of its settlements. A solid band of dwellers who kept watch, called the police whenever they Had information, set an example, helped the lost find the way home to humanness, and stood together in half-military wise: they could make a neighborhood unprofitable, actually dangerous, for pushers.

“I been threatened, myself,” Castle said. “Other guys have too. I think, we really think, if we don’t pull out, the mob’s gonna try an’ blow us away.”

“We can’t abandon the project,” she told him. “We’ve sunk more than we can afford to lose into it. The Unity isn’t rich, you know.”

“Yeah, I know. So what can we do?” He straightened. “Fight back, tha’s what we can do.”

“People aren’t allowed to defend themselves in New York City,” she snapped.

“Uh-huh. Only—well, sure, we can’t tell Mama-lo. We can’t let her know. She’d have to forbid, wouldn’t she? No matter what we’d lose. But if some of us was ready to fight back, an’ word o’ that got aroun’ underground, why, maybe we’ll never have to. How ‘bout that? You been aroun’ a lot. What do you think?”

“I’ll need to hear a great deal more. And, yes, think hard.” Already Aliyat suspected what her decision would be.

“Sure. We’ll talk whenever you can spare the time, Missus-lo Rosa. We’re dependin’ on you.”

On me! she thought, and pride thrilled.

They walked mute thereafter to the entrance of her home building. She gave him her hand. “Thanks for being so honest, Randy,” she said.

“Thank you, Missus-lo.” In this brighter illumination, his smile gleamed. “When can we meet again?”

Temptation blazed. Why not at once? He was strong and handsome in his rugged fashion, and it had been a long time, and ... she wondered if she had at last become able to give of herself, whole-heartedly, without hate or contempt or even suspicion.

But no. He might be shocked. Certainly many members would be, if they found out. Better not chance it.

“Soon,” she promised. “Right now I have some record-keeping chores to finish. In fact, I’d better put in a couple of hours tonight, before I go to sleep. Soon, though.”

6

From the lounge where he sat, turning over the pages of a British magazine without the text especially registering on his mind, Hanno could see into the foyer. Twice a woman entered and his heart jumped; but she went on toward the elevator. The third time proved the charm. She spoke with the clerk at the desk, turned, and moved hesitantly his way. At once he rose from the leather of the armchair. It crossed his mind that long residence in this country might not have given a Russian Western habits of punctuality; and a Russian perhaps hundreds of years old—

She came in and halted. His vision flashed across her. Becker’s description was sketchy, and the German had been under orders not to ask for photographs, lest a prospect take alarm. She was about as tall as Hanno, which put her on the short side among modem Nordics though average among her own kind, A full figure, lithely and erectly borne, gave the impression of more height. Her features were broad, blunt, comely. Blond hair in a Dutch bob framed fair skin. Quietly dressed, she wore low shoes and carried a shoulder bag.

Her brows lifted. Tongue touched lips. If she was nervous, which would be more than understandable, she mastered it gamely. “Mr... , Cauldwell?”

How could that husky voice sound familiar? Just deja vu, no doubt. Hanno bowed. “At your service, ah, Dr. Rasmussen,” he said. “Thank you for coming.”

She constructed a smile for him. “Miss Rasmussen will do, if you please. You will remember I am a veterinarian, not a physician.” Her English came readily, though the heavy accent was more Slavic than Danish. “I am sorry to be late. It is because of an emergency in my office.”

“That’s okay. You couldn’t leave an animal to suffer.” He recalled how much they made of shaking hands here and extended his. “I am glad you could, and would, come at all.”

Her grip was firm. The blue gaze intensified upon him, no longer shy. Not forward, either; watchful; he thought of a hunter. Yes, but it was also—puzzled, more than this curious meeting warranted? “Your agent made it sound ... interesting,” she said. “I can promise nothing until I have heard more.”

“Of course. We need to talk quite a lot; and then, if I am not presuming, I would like the pleasure of your company at dinner.” Win or lose, he would. Why did she excite him so? “The talk should be private. This hotel doesn’t have a bar, but we can find one close by, or a coffee shop or anything you wish, as long as we won’t be distracted or overheard.”

She went straighter to business than he had dared hope. “I think you are a gentleman, Mr. Cauldwell. Let us use your room.”

“Wonderful!” Old manners returned and he offered her his arm. She took it with a natural grace making up for the fact that she had obviously not had much practice.

They were silent in the elevator, never quite looking at each other. Damn, he thought, something about her haunts me. Could I have seen her before? Hardly possible. Oh, I have visited Denmark now and then, but while she’s sightly, she wouldn’t stand out in a crowd of such women as they’ve got here.

He had taken a top-floor suite. The hotel was fairly old, far from Copenhagen’s loftiest, but these windows gave a view over bustling downtown and lovely, soaring spires. Furnishings were comfortable, a little faded, reminiscent of a gentility well-nigh vanished from the world. She smiled more easily than at first. “You have good taste in places to stay,” she murmured.

“This is a favorite of mine,” he said. “Has been for a long time.”

“Do you travel much?”

“Going to and fro in the earth, and walking up and down in it. Please be seated. What would you like to drink? I have a small refrigerator, beer, akvavit, Scotch, soda, or I’ll be glad to send down for anything else.”

“Coffee, thank you.”

A cautious choice. He rang. Turning around, he saw that she hadn’t taken cigarettes from her bag. Probably then, unlike most Danes, she didn’t smoke. He wished for his pipe to soothe him but decided against it and settled facing her.

“I am not sure how much Becker made clear to you,” he began.

“Very little. I am frank about that. He told of the ... Rufus Institute? ; . . in America and how it wanted to study persons who ... can expect to live for many years. The interest in history—there are more measures of intelligence than that. I went away feeling very unsure. When you telephoned from across the ocean, I wondered whether to make this appointment. But I will hear you, Mr. Cauldwell.”

“I am the man who founded the Institute.”

She studied him. “You must be rich.”

He nodded. “Yes.” Himself alert for any clue whatsoever: “I am a great deal older than I look.”

Did the breath hiss inward between her teeth? “To me you seem young.”

“As you do to me. May I ask your age?”

“I told Mr. Becker.” Starkness stood forth. “No doubt he, or you, or a detective of yours checked the public records.”

He lifted a palm. “Hold on. Please. We both need to be honest, but let’s not push ahead too hard. AlJow me a few questions. You are Russian by birth?”

“Ukrainian. I reached Denmark in 1950. By now I am naturalized.”

He made his lips shape a soundless whistle. “Almost forty years ago, and you must have been adult then.”

Her grin was taut. “You are searching for people who age slowly, no? How old are you, Mr. Cauldwell?”

“I wonder if we shouldn’t postpone that subject a while,” he said carefully.

“Perhaps ... we ... should.” Both of them shivered.

“I don’t want to pry,” he said, “but I had better know. Are you married? I am not, currently.”

The flaxen head shook. “Nor I. I have not married in this country. I got permission to change my last name. ‘Olga’ is common enough in Denmark, but the rest of it, nobody could spell or pronounce.”

“And ‘Rasmussen’ here is like ‘Smith’ in the USA. You didn’t want to be more conspicuous than you could help, did you?”

“Not at first. Things have changed since.” She sighed. “I have wondered lately if I might even go back, now when they say the terror has been ended. Never a day but I have longed for my motherland.”

“You could have too much explaining to do.”

“Probably. I did go away as a refugee, an outlaw.”

That was not precisely what I meant, he thought; and I suspect she realizes it.

“The Danish government knows, down in its archives,” she proceeded. “I said little to Mr. Becker, but you may as well hear. During the war I was a soldier in the Red Army. Many Ukrainians wanted to be free—of Stalin or of the Soviet Union itself, because we are the old, true Russians. Kiev was the seed and the roofof the whole Russian nation. The Moskaly came later. Many of us welcomed the Germans for liberators. That was a terrible mistake, but how could anybody know, when for more than twenty years all we heard was lies or silence? Some men enlisted with Hitler. I never did, I tell you. One resists the invader, whoever he is. But when the Germans retreated, they left parts of the Ukraine in revolt. Stalin needed years to crush it. Have you heard this?”

“I know something about it,” he said bleakly. “If I remember aright, the resistance movement had a headquarters in Copenhagen. Just the same, hardly a word about what was happening got into the liberal—“ no, in Europe “liberal” retained its original meaning—“the Western establishment press.”

“I had been discharged, but I had friends, kinsmen, people of mine in the rebellion. Some openly fought, some were sympathizers who gave what help they could whenever they dared. I knew I was under suspicion. If I did not soon betray somebody to Stalin’s secret police, they would come for me. Then it would be the labor camp or the bullet in the head or worse.” Anguish reawakened. “But how could I join the rebels? How could I shoot at Russian soldiers, my comrades of the war? I fled. I made my way to the West.”

“That was an awesome doing,” he said, altogether sincerely. It had meant hunger, thirst, hiding, running, walk-big, slipping past guard posts, surviving on what scraps of food she chanced to find, for a thousand miles and more.

“I am strong,” she replied. “I had my sharpshooter skills. And I had prepared myself.” Fingers gripped the arms of her chair. “It was not my first time like that.”

Thunder racketed hi his skull. “I have ... had adventures ... of my own ... in the past.”

A knock sounded. Hanno got up and admitted a bellboy, who brought a tray with urn, cups, sugar, cream, and kringler. While he oversaw its placement and tipped the man, he said, because lightness was necessary but stillness impossible, “You’ve had a peaceful time since, I gather.”

He felt the same need was driving her. “I got asylum in Denmark.” From what officials, and how? he wondered. Not that it mattered. If you knocked around in the world long enough, you learned the ways of it, and the byways. “I wanted that because of the Ukrainian connection, but I came to love this country. They are dear people, and the land is so mild. I worked on a farm, decided I would like to be a veterinarian, went to school, studied English and German also, to talk with foreigners who might bring me their pets. Now I have a practice out in Kongens Lyngby, a nice suburb.”

The bellman had left. Hanno walked back to stand above her. “But you are of retirement age, or nearly,” he said. “Your friends marvel at how you still appear young. They tease you about a fountain of youth. They begin to wonder, though, why you don’t retire. The government does too. Where will you go, Olga?”

She gazed steadily up at him. “Yes, they keep excellent records in Denmark. Where would you suggest that I go? And what is your real name?”

His pulse hammered. “All right,” he said, “no more pussyfooting. I didn’t want to scare you off. However, I believe I can come right out with the truth after all.” He resumed his chair, not to seem threatening or attempting of dominance. One like her would react fiercely to that, he judged. “What I am about to tell you will sound like insanity, or some wild confidence game, unless you are what I’m pretty sure you are. Do not take fright. Listen to me. Go open the door and stand by it if you wish.”

She shook her head. Her breasts rose and fell.

“As close as makes no difference,” Hanno said, “I am three thousand years old. Do you care to tell me— What?”

She had gone wholly white. For a moment she sagged back in her chair. He half rose to help and reassure. She straightened. “Cadoc,” she whispered.

“Huh?”

“Cadoc. You. It comes back to me. The trader in Kiev. Kiyiv, we called it then. When was that? Nearly one thousand years past, I think.”

Memory smote like a sudden look into the sun. “You ... your name—”

“I was Svoboda then. In my heart I always am. But who are you really?”

Of course, he thought in his daze, neither would remember a briefly met mortal for very long, out of an uncountable myriad gone down into dust. But neither had ever quite forgotten, either. He carted to mind now the phantom that had stirred in him at moments strewn through the centuries.

“S-Svoboda, yes,” he stammered. “We rescued you.”

“And the night was golden. We could have had more!”

They left their chairs and stumbled into each other’s arms.

7

Outside, the District of Columbia stewed in its summer. Air conditioning breathed coolness through Moriarty’s office. The heat that he felt was dry, a fire. He slapped the magazine down onto his desk. The noise cracked. “You bastard,” he mumbled. “You evil, malignant—”

The intercom chimed. “Mr. Stoddard to see you, Senator,” announced his receptionist’s voice.

Moriarty caught a breath and gusted it back as a laugh. “Perfect timing!” he exclaimed. “Send him right in.”

The man who entered was short, undistinguished-looking, and coldly competent. Sweat from outdoors glistened on his cheeks. He carried a briefcase. “How do you do, sir,” he greeted. His glance went from face to desk and back again. “You’ve been reading the latest, I see.”

“Of course,” Moriarty snapped. “Sit down. Have you seen it?”

“Not yet.” Stoddard took a chair. “I’ve been busy investigating the person responsible, you know.”

The fleshy man behind the desk picked up the magazine again and placed it under his dashingly styled reading glasses. “Listen to this. The editorial. Deals with my speech in aid of the CCCP. I’m taking a paragraph at random, more or less.” Trained, his voice shed the throb of indignation and recited methodically:

“ ‘The senator was introduced by peace and disarmament activist Dr. Fulvia Bourne. He dealt with the embarrassment in masterly fashion. Rather than refer to her speech at the previous day’s banquet, whether to endorse or disavow such colorful phrases as “the Pentagon, a pentacle crowded with the demons of nuclear madness,” or “the CIA—the Children Immolation Agency,” he made an unspeech of it and simply called her a modern Joan of Arc. That St. Joan took arms in the cause of liberation became an unfact. Thence it was an easy transition to the necessity for statesmanship, for “patience abroad but impatience at home.” Evidently the patience is to be with the likes of Srs. Castro and Ortega. After all, the senator’s esteemed party colleague, the Reverend Nahaliel Young, addresses both these gentlemen as “Dear Comrade.” We are to have no patience whatsoever with, say, South Africa. As for domestic policy, an impatience to complete the destruction of the productive classes in America—’ ”

“Arrh!” erupted. “Why go on? Read it for yourself, if you can stand to.”

“May I ask a question, Senator?” Stoddard murmured.

“”Certainly. I’ve always stood for free and open dialectic.”

Stoddard’s gaze weighed Moriarty. “Why do you let this Tannahill get your goat? He isn’t writing anything that other opponents of yours don’t.”

The broad countenance reddened. “He puts no bounds on his nastiness. Opposition is different from persecution. You know how he tries not just to make trouble nationally, but to drive a wedge between me and my constituency.”

“Oh, he does operate out of New England and make a lot of regional references, but he’s not in your state, Senator. And really, The Chart Room has a small circulation.”

“It only takes a small dose of virus, slipped to the right people, to infect a whole population. Tannahill’s getting attention not just from old-line conservatives and neo-fascists, but on campuses, among the young.” Moriarty sighed. “Oh, yes, the snake has his First Amendment rights, and I admit his gibes at me hurt more than they ought. I should be used to cruelty.”

“If I may say so, you often leave yourself open to the likes of him. I’d have advised you against addressing that rally.”

“In politics you take what allies you can find, and make the best of them.”

“Like South Africa? Sorry.” Stoddard didn’t sound repentant.

Moriarty frowned but continued: “The Committee does include some extremists, but damn it, they’re extremists in a good cause. We need their energy and dedication.” He cleared his throat. “Never mind. Let’s get to business. The business of discovering who this Tannahill is and who’s behind him. What can you tell me?”

“Nothing much, I’m afraid. As far as my investigators have dug, and they’re good at their work, he’s clean. True, they didn’t manage to dig to the very bottom.”

“Oh?” Moriarty leaned forward. “He remains the mystery man on that estate of his?” The remark was irresistible: “He would have settled in New Hampshire, wouldn’t he? ‘Live free or die.’ He may even believe it.”

“He’s not a Howard Hughes-like recluse, if that’s what you mean, Senator,” Stoddard replied. “In fact, what makes him hard to learn about is that he’s seldom at his place. He gets around—everywhere, maybe, though for the most part my men couldn’t find out where he does go. Neither his household servants nor his magazine staff were any help to speak of. They’re two handfuls of hand-picked individuals, long with him, loyal to him, close-mouthed. Not that they keep any shameful secrets.” He chuckled. “No such luck. They simply don’t know what the boss does away from them, and they have an antiquated Yankee notion that it’s nobody’s business.”

Moriarty gave his assistant a sharp glance. Sometimes he wondered whether Stoddard was not aiding him strictly for the pay. However, the fellow performed well enough that one must put up with his occasional impudence. “What have you found?” Moriarty asked. “No matter if you repeat things I already know.”

“I’m afraid that’s what I’ll mainly be doing.” The other man drew a sheet of paper from his briefcase and consulted the notes on it. “Kenneth Alexander Tannahill was born August 25, 1933 in Troy, Vermont, a little town near the Canadian border. His parents moved away shortly afterward. A former neighbor, to whom they wrote a couple of letters, said they’d gone to Minnesota, but he couldn’t remember precisely where. A North Woods hamlet. Everything’s shadowy, nothing on record but the bare minimum of official stuff and a few old stories in an upstate newspaper.”

Excitement tingled in Moriarty. “Do you mean this could be an assumed identity? Suppose the real Tannahills all died, say in an accident. A man with money, who wanted to cover his tracks, could set a detective agency to locating such a deceased family, one that suited his needs.”

“Maybe.” Stoddard sounded skeptical. “Damn hard to prove.”

“Draft records from before the end of conscription?”

“I’d rather not try springing anything like that loose for you, Senator.”

“No, I suppose not. Unless we can turn up clues that justify it to the proper authorities.”

“Tannahill has never claimed he was ever in the service. We got that much. But a lot of men his age never were, in spite of Korea and Vietnam, for a variety of reasons. He’s given no hints as to why he wasn’t. Uh, it isn’t that he acts evasive or secretive. Associates describe him as a genial sort with a ready fund of jokes and quips; though he does require competence from his employees, and gets it. He simply has a knack for turning conversation away from himself.”

“He would. Go on. Never married, I believe?”

“No. Not homosexual or impotent. There have been a few women over the years whom we’ve identified. Nothing especially serious, and none of them bear him any grudge.”

“Too bad. What kind of trail has he left on the West Coast?”

“Essentially zilch. He first surfaced in New Hampshire, bought his house and grounds, started his magazine, all as a—not exactly an employee of Tomek Enterprises. ‘Associate’ or ‘agent’ might be a better word. At any rate, Tomek finances him, and I’d guess that a tot of his trips are for purposes of reporting back to the old man.”

“Who’s pretty shadowy himself, isn’t he?” Moriarty stroked his chin. It puffed out a bit under his fingers. “I’ve been thinking more and more that that line may well be worth pursuing.”

“Senator, my advice to you is to drop this whole business. It’s expensive as hell, it takes up staff time you badly need in an election year, and I’m ninety-nine percent convinced it could never produce anything politically useful.”

“Do you wink I am only a politician, Hank?”

“I’ve heard you describe your ideals.”

Moriarty reached decision. “You’re right, we can’t go on chasing ghosts. At the same time, I feel it in my bones, something here won’t bear the light of day. Yes, I have personal motivations too. Exposing it would be a coup; and I’m sick of TannahilPs baiting and want to lash back. We’ll have to leave off the effort to get background information, I suppose, but I won’t give up entirely.” He bridged his fingers and peered over them. “Where is he at the moment?”

Stoddard shrugged. “Someplace this side of the moon ... probably.”

Moriarty bit his lip. The Chart Room had been extra vicious about the decline of the American space program. “Well, he’ll have to come back eventually. I want his house and his office under surveillance. When he does show up, I want a twenty-four-hour tail on him. Understand?”

Stoddard began to form an answer, swallowed it, and nodded. “Can do, if you don’t mind paying what it costs.”

“I have money,” Moriarty said. “My own if necessary.”

8

“What is wrong?”

Natalia Thurlow’s question cut—or probed, like a sword early in an engagement. Hanno realized that she would no longer be denied. Nonetheless he stood for a while yet, staring out of Robert Cauldwetl’s living room window. The late summer dark had fallen. Where his body staved off reflections he saw lights in their thousands, down the hill and through the lower city to the peace that lay mightily upon the waters. Thus had Syracuse basked in wealth and happiness, with the greatest mechanicians of the age to perfect her defenses; and meanwhile the austere Romans prepared themselves.

“You came home yesterday like a man in a dream,” Natalia went on at his back. “Then today you left practically at dawn, and haven’t returned till now, still locked up inside yourself.”

“I told you why,” he said. “Business accumulated while I was gone.”

“What do you mean? Except for your interest in the Rufus Lab, what do you do any longer, locally?”

The challenge made him turn around. She stood rigid, fists at her sides. The pain that he saw hurt him too; the rising anger that he heard was a kind of balm.

“You know I have things going elsewhere,” he reminded her. She had seen the modest downtown office he maintained. He had never described just what it was for.

“Indeed. Whenever I tried to call you, your machine answered.”

“I had to get around. What did you want? I phoned the machine here to say you shouldn’t wait dinner for me.”

In point of fact, throughout the day he had mostly been Joe Levine, briefing a couple of other attorney-accountants on Charles Tomek’s tax audit so that they could take over while he was gone for some unpredictable time on some unspecified matter. They already knew the general situation and many details, of course. No single agent could cope with Uncle Sam. (And what did those hordes of paper shufflers produce that was of any value to any living soul?) However, there were certain tricky points they needed to understand.

At that, it could prove costly, leaving them to their own devices. Not that they might reveal illegalities. None existed. Hanno knew better than to allow such a crack in his defenses against the state. But he couldn’t explain to them why Mr. Tomek must not be found on his travels and brought back to help cope.

Ephemera. Expendable. Svoboda would soon arrive, to be the fifth in the fellowship.

And beyond her— Despite himself, his pulse thuttered.

“I thought we could meet for dinner at a restaurant,” Natalia was saying.

“Sorry. That wouldn’t have worked. I grabbed a sandwich.” Untrue. He could not have stayed calm in her company. He wasn’t quite the poker player he had supposed. Maybe Svoboda had thawed something within him, or shaken it till it began to crack.

“You refuse me the reason you were so rushed, don’t you?” Natalia sighed. “You’re a wily one. Only now does it really dawn on me how little you’ve ever let slip about what you do, about anything meaningful that concerns you.”

“Look, let’s not fight,” he urged. “You know I’m, uh, taciturn by nature.”

“No, you’re not. That’s the trouble. You talk and talk, glib, interesting, but aside from those Neanderthal politics of yours, how much do you seriously say?” Before he could reply, she raised a hand to hush him. “In spite of that, I’ve discovered how to read certain clues. Whoever you met in Denmark, it wasnXthe ‘promising subject’ you spoke of so vaguely. And then when we got home from the airport and you looked through the mail, that one letter in it that rocked you back— You couldn’t completely hide your reaction. But I foresaw you wouldn’t show it to me or speak a single word about it.”

Assuredly not, Hanno thought. Especially since Asagao, the naive little sweetheart, had penned it in her awkwardly precise English. “It’s private, confidential.”

“A person in Idaho, as well as Denmark?”

Damn! She’d noticed the return address. He should have cautioned the Asian pair about communicating with him. But they knew his Cauldwell identity from the Rufus connection, and they were timid about the Tomek complex—an unfamiliar kind of thing, where perhaps strangers would intercept messages—and it had never before occurred to him that they, of all people on earth, might bumble onto a fresh scent.

As it was, Natalia had been honorable and not steamed the envelope open. Well, he’d made sure of her character before taking up with her more than casually.

Did he indeed understand her, though? She was a bright and complicated person. That was what had attracted him. She might have had fewer surprises to spring on him if he’d been more forthcoming with her.

Too late now, he thought. The sadness that crossed him was half weariness. Even for a creature of his vitality, this had been an exhausting day.

He roughened his language: “Get off my back, will you? Neither of us owns the other.”

She stiffened further. “No, you haven’t wanted any commitment, have you? What am I to you, besides a sexual convenience?”

“Oh, for God’s sake, stop this nonsense!” He made a step in her direction. “What we’ve had was, was splendid. Let’s not ruin it.”

She stood unstirring, save that her eyes grew very wide. “Was?” she whispered.

He had wanted to tell her in kindlier wise. Maybe this was better. “I have to take off again. Not sure when I’ll be back.”

Fly east. As Tannahill, engage a private detective to collect the basic information about those Unity people, take a few surreptitious photos, provide him the basis for deciding whether to approach them directly or not. Meanwhile Svoboda would have wound up her affairs in Europe, obtained her visa and ticket, boarded a plane. She’d be landing in New York. The seclusion of the Tannahill property offered a chance to get genuinely acquainted, to catch up on the past millennium.

“And you won’t tell me why,” Natalia said, flat-voiced.

“I am sorry, but I can’t.” He had long since learned to avoid elaborate fictions.

She looked past him, or through him. “Another woman? Maybe. But more to it than that. Else you’d just cast me off.”

“No, listen— Look Nat, you’re welcome to keep on living here, in fact I hope you do, and—”

She shook her head. “I have my pride.” Her gaze sharpened. “What are you up to? Who are you conspiring with, and why?”

“I say again, this is a personal matter.”

“Maybe it is. Considering the attitudes you’ve expressed, I can’t be sure.” She lifted her hand anew. “Oh, I won’t go bearing tales, especially since you give me nothing to go on. But I’ve got to cover my ass. You understand that, don’t you? If the cops ever question me, Til tell them what little I know. Because I don’t owe you any loyalty any longer.”

“Hey, wait!” He reached to take hold of her. She warded him off. “Let’s sit down and have a drink and talk this out.”

She considered him. “How much more will you actually have to say?”

“I—well, I care about you and—”

“Never mind. You can make up the Hide-a-Bed for yourself. HI pack my things tomorrow.”

She went from him.

I would have had to depart before long in any case, he could not cry after her. It should have been easier than this. At least I’ll occupy no more of the years that are left you.

He wondered if she, once alone tonight, would weep.

9

Rain fell slowly through windlessness, almost a mist. Its tarnished silver hid the slabs of apartment buildings and muffled every noise. There were only wet grass, dripping leaves, glimmer of marshwater along the walkway. Nobody else was about on such a midweek afternoon in northwest Copenhagen. Having left his place and gone the short distance to Utterslev Mose park, Peter Astrup and Olga Rasmussen had the world to themselves.

Beneath his cap, droplets glinted on the round young face like tears. “But you cannot leave just like this,” he pleaded. .She looked straight ahead. Both her hands, after he let go, she had jammed into the pockets of her coat. “It is sudden,” she admitted.

“Brutally sudden!”

“That’s why I asked you to take the day off so I could meet you. Time is short, and I have much to do first.”

“After I hadn’t seen or beard from you since—“ He seized her arm. “What were you doing? Who have you been with?”

She edged aside. He felt the unspoken command and released her. He was always gentle, she thought, sympathetic, yes, he may be the sweetest lover I have ever had or ever will. “I don’t want to hurt you more than I must, Peter,” she said low. “This way seems best.”

“But what of our holiday in Finland?” He gulped. “Pardon me, that was an idiotic thing to ask ... now.”

“Not really.” She made herself regard him again. “I was looking forward the same as you. This opportunity, though, is too great.”

“Is it?” he demanded desperately. “To go haring off to America and—and what? You haven’t made that at all clear.”

“It’s confidential. Scientific research. I promised to say nothing about it. But you know how interested I am.”

“Yes. Your mind, your reach of knowledge, I believe that drew me to you more than your beauty.”

“Oh, come,” she tried to laugh. “I realize I’m rather plain.”

He stopped. Perforce she did likewise. They faced each other in the chilly gray. Because he was still youthful, he blurted, “You are mysterious, you hide something, I know you do, and you are, are incomparable as a woman.”

And Hanno, she thought, has also passed many mortal lifetimes hi learning.

“I, I love you, Olga,” Peter stammered. “I’ve told you before. I do again. Will you marry me? With papers and, and everything.”

“Oh, my dear,” she murmured. “I’m old enough to be—“ Abruptly she could not say, “Your mother.” Instead: “I am too old for you. I may not look it, but I have told you. We’ve enjoyed this past couple of years.”

We have, we have. And Hanno—what do I truly know of Hanno? What can I await from him? He and I have both lived too long in secret, it has surely misshaped us in ways we don’t feel, but he prowled the world for thrice the time that I abided in my Russia. He has been fascinating and challenging and, yes, fun; but already I have glimpsed a ruthlessness. Or is it an inward loneliness? How much is he able to care for anyone or for anything beyond naked survival?

Through the confusion she heard herself finish: “We knew from the first that it couldn’t last. Let’s end it cleanly, while it’s still happy.”

He stood slumped. “I don’t care how old you are,” he said. “I love you.”

Exasperation stirred. You’re being babyish, she kept from saying. Well, what could I expect from a person not yet thirty? You have nothing left for me to discover. “I’m sorry.” No doubt I should have declined you at the beginning, but the flesh has its demands and liaisons here are easy come, easy go. With Hanno and those others— Is an immortal marriage possible? I don’t think I’m actually in love with him yet, or he with me. Perhaps we never will be. But that’s no foundation for an enduring partnership anyway. Certainly not by itself. We’ll have to see what happens.

We’ll see. What happens.

“Don’t take it this hard,” she said. “You’ll get over it, and find the right girl.”

And settle down to raise children who will grow up into the same comfortable narrowness and crumble into the same dust. Unless we are on the verge of fire and slaughter and a new dark age, as Hanno thinks we may well be.

Svoboda smiled at Peter. “Meanwhile,” she said quietly, “we might go back to your apartment and give ourselves a grand farewell.”

After all, it would only be until tomorrow.

10

Corinne Macandal received her caller in the Victorian living room. “How do you do,” she said, and offered her hand. His was sinewy, unexpectedly hard, the clasp light but firm. He bowed over hers with an archaic assurance. “Please be seated. Would you like a cup of coffee or tea?”

Kenneth Tannahill kept his feet. “Thank you,” he replied, “but could we please talk in confidence, where nobody can overhear?”

Surprised, she looked closer at him. Her immediate thought was: How old is he, anyway? Black hair, smooth skin, supple frame spoke of youth, but more than the leanness of the countenance suggested a man who had seen many years and much of the world. Hie signs were too subtle for her to name, nonetheless real. “Indeed? I thought you wanted an interview for your magazine.”

His anile was somehow feline. “That isn’t exactly what my note asked for, though it did give that impression, didn’t it?”

Wariness laid hold of her. “What do you want, then? I must confess I’m not familiar with your, m-m, Chart Room.”

“It’s not a big publication. Nor sensationalistic, may I add. Mostly it runs articles, or essays, on current events. We often go into history or anthropology, trying to put things in perspective.”

“It sounds interesting.” Macandal drew breath. “However, I’m afraid I must decline an interview or anything like that. I don’t want publicity. It’s distasteful to me personally, and it might harm the Unity.”

“Really? I should think if the work you people are doing—evidently in many ways a unique approach—if it became widely known, you’d get more support, cooperation, everything you need. Others might be inspired to imitate you.”

“I doubt they could, successfully. We are unique. One of the tilings that makes it possible for us to do what we do is precisely our smallness, our intimacy. Being stared at could destroy that.”

Tannahili’s large, half oblique eyes sought hers and held steady. “I suspect it’s less important than you yourself, my lady,” he said in almost an undertone. “And your associate, Ms. Donau.”

Alarm stabbed. Macandal drew herself up and raised her voice a bit. “What are you after? Will you please come to the point?”

“My apologies. No offense intended. On the contrary. But I do believe we should talk in complete privacy.”

She came to decision. “Very well. Wait a minute and I’ll issue instructions about that.”

Stepping into the hall, she found a maid and whispered, “The gentleman and I will be in the sanctum. Tell Boyd and Jerry to stand by, and come in at once if I ring.”

The girl gaped. “You ‘spec’ trouble, ma’am?”

“Not really,” Macandal reassured her. “But just hi case.” You didn’t keep going immortally by omitting precautions.

She returned and led Tannahill in among the things that stood for power. He seemed to scan them thoroughly in the moment mat it took her to shut the door. “Now do sit down,” she told him, more curtly than she had intended.

He obeyed. She took a chair across the coffee table. “I’d appreciate your explaining your errand as quickly as possible,” she said.

He couldn’t quite hide the tension that was also in him. “Forgive me if I don’t,” he answered. “What I’m here about is tremendous. I have to be sure of you before I dare let you in on it. Let me start by promising you there will be no threats, demands, attempts to make you do anything wrong. I belong to an unusual class of people. I have reason to think you and Ms. Donau do too. If so, we’ll invite you to join us, for purposes of mutual help and companionship.”

Can he be—? Briefly, the dimness of the chamber hazed before her and a roaring was in her ears. Through it she beard:

“I’ll be honest, and hope you won’t get angry. I’ve had a detective agency prepare a report on you two and your organization for me. They did not pry. They simply went around for about a week, chatted with persons who were willing, took a few snapshots, otherwise looked through newspaper files and relevant public records. It was only for purposes of briefing me, so that I could come today prepare-d to talk intelligently and not waste your time.” Tannahill smiled a bit. “You, the individual, remain as enigmatic as ever. I know practically nothing about you except that according to those files and the recollections of two or three aged Unity members, your mother founded this group which you head, and you resemble her. On the other hand, if I’m not mistaken, I have somewhat more information about Rosa Donau.”

Macandal summoned composure. Her heart wouldn’t stop racing, but her mind ran smoothly and every sense was whetted. If this truly was an immortal, need that be a men-, ace, be aught but joy? Of course, if he wasn’t— Yes, she too must tread with care. “Then why haven’t you ap-proached her first?” she asked.

“She might not like that. Can’t you see, I’m trying not to arouse fears.” Tannahill leaned forward, hands on knees. “May I tell you a story? Call it a piece of fiction if you like. Or a parable; you’re obviously well-read.”

She nodded.

“Once upon a time,” he began slowly, “a woman lived in what is now Istanbul. In those days they called it Constantinople, and it was the capital of a great empire. The woman wasn’t born there, but in Syria. She’d had a hard life, knocked around a lot in the world and taken many cruel knocks from it. Yes, she was much older than she appeared. Not as old as her profession, for which she needed that youthful-looking body. She did well in it, though at intervals she had to pull up stakes and relocate under a different name. To her, at last, came a man who was also older than he seemed. He and his partner had wandered far and wide. At present they were traders, on the Russian river route.”

Always he watched her. She couldn’t take it any more. “Stop!” she cried. Drawing breath: “Mr... Tannahill, are you by any chance associated with ... a gentleman named Willock?”

The fingers whitened on his knees. “Yes. That is, I know of him. He may not have heard of me. A longevity research foundation engaged him to find people who carry—the genes for long life. Extremely long life.”

“I see.” Strange how calm she suddenly was, how detached. It was as if somebody else spoke. “Rosa and I saw his advertisement. We found it interesting.”

“But you didn’t respond.”

“No. We have to be careful. The Unity works among, and against, some bad types. We have our enemies, and they have no scruples.”

“So I’ve gathered. I swear to you, uh, Miss Macandal, this group I belong to is decent. In fact, we were alerted to your existence because two among us do human rehabilitation themselves. And we are few. Oh, very few,” he ended.

“Nevertheless, you must give me time to consider this. You’ve learned about us. What do we know about you?”

Tannahill sat silent for the better part of a minute before he nodded. “That’s reasonable. Ask anything you like.”

She lifted her brows. “Do you guarantee to answer every single question, truthfully and in full?”

He threw back his head and laughed. “No. Good for you!” Turning serious: “Not before we fully trust each other. Let me do whatever I can toward that.”

“For the moment, nothing. I want to run an independent check on you. Read a few issues of your magazine. Find out how you live, what your neighbors think of you, that sort of thing. What you did to us. It shouldn’t take long. Then Rosa and I will plan our next move.”

He smiled, visibly easing. “What you’re telling me is, ‘Don’t call us, we’ll call you.’ Okay. On my side we have both time and patience. We know how to wait. Nothing will happen till you want it to.”

He reached in a pocket and offered his card to her. “That’s my New Hampshire address. My friend and I—I’m not in town alone—we’ll return there tomorrow. Phone whenever you wish, or write if you prefer. If we go away, I’ll tell the staff how to get in touch with me, and should be able to come back here oh a day’s notice.”

“Thank you.”

He came near winning her over at once by promptly rising and saying, “No, my thanks to you. I look forward to hearing at your convenience.” He paused. “Please tell my fable to Ms. Donau, and add the happy ending. The man in it stopped long ago being angry at the woman. He hopes she’ll enjoy meeting him again.”

“I’ll tell her,” Macandal agreed. They clasped hands afresh, a touch that clung the least bit, but neither spoke while she saw him to the door.

Her gaze followed him till he had disappeared down the mean street, walking briskly and fearlessly. Well, she thought, he can take care of himself, he’s been in worse places than Harlem by daylight... Damn, what a charmer!

Or am I just reading that into him? Aliyat may well be right, an immortal man is not necessarily a good man.

If he is, though—if they are—She still hasn’t explained to me exactly what she’s got against him—

What am I waiting for? Why am I hanging back? My God, he’s a man. There are probably other men.

Cool it, girl!

The flood of lust receded. It left her atremble, but able to laugh at herself, and that was a cleansing. Celibacy had been the price she must pay; Mama-lo could not take a series of lovers and dared not take a husband. She thought: I was proud of my self-control, and overlooked how self-important I was getting. Dowri underneath, honey, you’re just another raunchy, limited, woundable human being.

One who’s got responsibilities, though.

She went inside again and upstairs to a room that served as a private office. Its prosaic furnishings and equipment brought her further down from dizziness. She had work to do.

Macandal settled at the desk and reached for the phone. Among the numbers keyed in were three for certain police officers and one for a middle-rank agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The Unity had saved those men when they were children. Restless, they had not stayed, but by then it had equipped them to handle the world and they remembered. Not that any of them would betray his trust; nor would she ever ask him to. However, more than once they had looked into matters for her, taking for granted that her unspecified reasons were legitimate. Through them she could quickly find out a great deal about Kenneth Tan-nahill—perhaps even some things he himself didn’t know.

11

The cab driver had taken on a grim expression when Aliyat gave him the address. He was plainly glad to let her out there and be gone. For a moment she felt forsaken.

Twilight lingered in the sky, but the rotting walls around her closed most of it off and night already possessed the street. What lampglow fell dully on it showed bare pavement, cracked sidewalks, scraps of paper and plastic, shards of glass, empty cans, cigarette butts, refuse less describable. A few windows, not boarded up, glowered at her. She saw nobody looking from them. It was as if she could smell the fear, one more stench among those that loaded an air still hot.

She hastened to the Unity’s tenement. The fagade was as dingy as the rest, refurbishing must wait its turn, but she ought to find freshness well advanced within. The workmen had gone home hours ago. Had the neighborhood shown life while they and their cheerful clatter were on hand?

The door was locked. It hadn’t been on her last visit. She glanced over her shoulder as she leaned on the buzzer, and gripped her purse tightly against her ribs.

A dark outline appeared in the safety-webbed glass. The man was studying her through a peephole. He took what felt like a long time to let her in. She recognized him but not the other standing nearby, though each wore the badge of a security volunteer. Well, she could not know every member any more. Neither man was he whom she had expected.

“Missus-lo!” the first exclaimed. “What’re you doin’ here, this late?”

“I need to see Randy Castle,” she said fast. “I was told he’s staying here now.”

“Yeah, he is.” A tongue clicked. “You shouldn’t of come, Missus-lo. ‘Speci’lly not alone.”

I realized that as soon as I arrived, she kept from admitting. Instead: “Well, he works all day.” —for a hauling company, which kept him on the move, unavailable to her. “I thought he’d be at Hope Flower.” —the Unity complex where he had an apartment in a safer district than this. “When he didn’t answer my calls, after I’d tried for hours, I rang his parents and they told me where he was. We need him for a job and he hasn’t any phone here.”

“We do.” The guard gestured at the instrument on a table amidst the clutter left by the carpenters. “I’d of fetched him.”

“No, I’m sorry, this is a confidential matter.”

“I see.” His trust was instant and absolute. “Well, he’s right down the hall, Number Three.” As he pointed, he forced a smile. “Don’t you worry none, Missus-lo. We’ll get you home okay.”

“One way or t’other,” muttered his companion.

Beyond the lobby, the corridor had been restored, awaiting only paint and a carpet. She knocked on a new door. The big man flung it open. “What?” he growled, and then, seeing her: “Hey, what’s goin’ on?”

“I have to talk with you,” Aliyat said.

With awkward, touching deference he ushered her in and closed the door again. The apartment was neatly finished but barely furnished, no tenants having been expected yet. Several books rested on a table beside a hotplate, and he had been covering notepaper with scrawled exercises. Like most young folk of the Unity, he was improving his education; his dream was to become an engineer. “Make yourself to home, Missus-lo,” tumbled from his lips. “Glad to see you, but wish you hadn’t come, know what I mean? What can I do for you?”

Because he wanted her to, she took the single chair. He offered to make coffee. She shook her head, and he sat down on the floor at her feet. “What’s wrong?” she inquired. “Why have you moved? Where’s Gus?”—the former night watchman.

Starkness replied. “Laid up, Missus-lo. Bunch o’ punks came in, uh, four nights ago an’ beat him pretty bad.”

“Has Mama-lo heard?” she asked, appalled.

“N-not yet. We figured might be best to tell you first, get your ‘pinion.” The disciples trying to protect the saint, Al-iyat thought. And Corinne might, after all, order abandonment of the project rather than grappling with violence. Men who have learned to be proud don’t easily retreat. “Only you was out of town.”

“Yes, this past couple of weeks. I’m sorry, I should have left word where I could be reached, but I never thought there’d be an emergency like this.”

“Sure,” he said, quite sincerely. “You couldn’t of known. You needed a vacation bad, you did. We noticed how tired you was gettin’.”

Not really, she thought. At least, not in the flesh. Still, it’s true, administration and treasury and accounting and counseling and—everything I do for us, mostly by myself because we can’t afford a proper staff—it does wear me down. No matter how much the Unity means to me, I cannot make it my whole life. I don’t have the spirit, the goodness, for that. From time to time I’ve go! to get away, take what I’ve saved out of my little paychecks and go elsewhere under a different name, enjoy a bit of luxury, glamour, fun, have an affair if I meet somebody attractive. (And mostly, these past several years, that’s been a man, not a woman; the Unity has washed away a lot of bitterness and started many sores healing.) Why am I talking to myself like this? To push away guilt, that I was absent? “How is Gus?”

“He’ll be all right. Healer Jules fixed him up neat as any regular doctor could have, and they’re takin’ care of him at his place.”

“You didn’t notify the police, then?”

“What use? Just put ourselves to a lot o’ trouble.”

“Listen,” Aliyat rapped, “how often must Mama-lo and I explain, the police are not our enemies? The criminals are.” I’m only half a hypocrite, she thought. Mostly, I guess, the cops mean well. But they’re saddled with laws that breed crime worse than Prohibition ever did.

“Well, if nothin’ else, they’re stretched too thin,” Castle said defensively. “They can’t post a round-the-clock watch for us, can they? And Gus told us those scumbags promised worse if we don’t clear out. Maybe firebombing, even. We decided we’d strengthen night-time security. That ought to discourage ‘em. It’s why me and some other men are stayin’ here.”

Chill crept along Aliyat’s backbone. The street outside was bare and quiet. So quiet. Had word gone around that something was hi the works?

What could she do? Nothing, unless later. “Do be careful,” she begged. “None of this is worth losing a single life.” You might have fifty or sixty years left you, Randy, dear.

“Um, you too, Missus-lo. Don’t you risk comin’ here again after dark. Not till we got the quarter cleaned up.” He sat straight, quickly eager. “What you want? How can we help you?”

That wakened the thrill that had coursed through when she spoke with Corinne upon her return today. It flamed the sordid surroundings out of her. She couldn’t sit still, she sprang to her feet. “I have to take a long drive, up into New Hampshire. I’ll be needing a driver and-let’s hope not, but maybe a bodyguard. Someone strong and completely reliable, including able to keep his mouth shut. I thought right away of you. Are you willing?”

He likewise had risen, to loom above her and exult: “At your service, Missus-lo, an’ thank you!”

“You probably needn’t lose time from work. Now that I know I can count on you, I’ll write ahead and tell them to expect me.” She didn’t really think mail would be intercepted, but she’d use a private express service to be safe, and to make sure of overnight delivery. Tannahilt could reply in the same fashion. “We’ll leave early Saturday morning. If everything goes well, we can return Sunday evening.

Or I might stay a while and you come back alone.” If I decide I dare trust them there.

“Sure.” He grew troubled. “You mentioned a bodyguard. Could it turn dangerous? I wouldn’t feel right about takin’ you into danger.”

“No, I don’t expect any physical threats.” Is that absolutely true? she wondered. With a grin: “It might help my errand if you’re in the background being huge. My purpose will be to convey a message and then, I think, confer.”

The message being that Corinne has learned Kenneth Tannahill is under close surveillance, apparently on behalf of a United States senator. She had just about decided to mail him the warning when I arrived. I told her that if I deliver it in person, that ought to rock him back enough that I can grab the initiative and—and what? Take his measure?

Cadoc, Hanno, it can only be him, whom I robbed and tried to get killed. He told her he’s forgiven me, and nine hundred years would be a long time to carry a grudge, unless it’s festered that whole while. We’ve got to decide whether to join with him and whoever else is in his band; and how to join, on what terms, if we do. I think 1 can recognize a crook or a monster sooner, more certainly, than Mama-lo.

“This will be kind of peculiar, though, Randy,” she said. “I need to enter the place and leave it unbeknownst to— well, whoever might be watching from outside. I’ll figure out some sort of disguise. Maybe cut my hair short, make my face up dark, dress like a man, and we carry tool kits, to seem like workers sent to do some repair job. The car we’ll drive is old and plain, and I’ll get hold of New Hampshire plates.” Though the Unity shunned crime, you were bound to learn who in town could supply what for a price. “We’ll switch along the way.”

An excitement she had well-nigh forgotten overrode forebodings. Shoot the dice and to hell with the authorities. Am I still an outlaw at heart?

But here stands this boy. “I’m sorry,” she finished. “We can’t let you sit in on our talks, and I can’t tell you anything. All I can do is swear this is honest business.”

“I wouldn’t doubt that for one second, Missus-lo,” he answered.

Her fingers closed on the brown hand before her. “You are a darting.”

Through the door went a crash and a scream.

“Hoy! Them?” Castle plunged across the room. Racket resounded. “Stay put, Missus-lo!” he yelled. From a carton on the floor he pulled an object darkly metallic and sped for the door. “I’m comin’, brothers! Hang on!”

“No, wait, drop that thing, don’t, Randy—“ Aliyat had no time to think. She followed the man who grasped the pistol that was forbidden to common folk.

Down the hall. Beyond the lobby Aliyat saw safety glass shattered. Smoke eddied against the night. Half a dozen men, youths, creatures were in. The guards— Two invaders held one watchman hard against the wall. Where was his companion? Others of the Unity boiled forth at Aliyat’s back.

“Halt, you bastards!” Castle roared. His gun barked, a warning shot aloft.

An attacker responded, straight.

Castle lurched, reeled back, somehow fired levelly before he fell. Aliyat glimpsed the blood that spouted from his throat.

The hammer smote her.

12

Moriarty was at breakfast when Stoddard called. The senator kept a phone in that room too. Even in this his summer home, in his own secure state, he must always be ready; and the number was unlisted, which gave some protection.

The voice immediately yanked his full awareness to it. Once he whistled, once he breathed, “My God.” He finally snapped, “Hop the first plane you can get out of National. Take a cab at this end, never mind what that costs. Bring all the material you have to date. I need the background. Been on the trail, you know, hitting the hustings... Okay. It does sound good, doesn’t it? ... Hurry. ‘Bye.”

He hung up. “What was that about?” asked his wife.

“Sorry, top secret,” he replied. “Uh, will you see to rescheduling my appointments today?”

“Including the Garrisons’ party? Remember who’ll be there.”

“Sorry. This is that important. You go, offer my regrets, and charm the socks off the VIPs.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“Which is mighty fine, my love.” What a First Lady she’d make—someday, someday, when his destiny blossomed. She wouldn’t mind the other women much, then. “Excuse me if I eat and run. I’ve a lot to clear away in less time than I was counting on.”

He did, in truth. Congress had adjourned, but constituents never set their problems aside and he couldn’t offend the key interests. And the convention had left him with several cans of worms to get rid of before the election. And meanwhile his speech day after tomorrow needed more work. It was merely at the dedication of a high school, but if he said the right things in striking new phrases, the media might pick one up. He must find an identifying motto, like FDR’s “—the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Or JFK’s “Ask not what your country—”

He received Stoddard a few hours later in his study. It was an airy room with a view over salt water that danced and glittered and upbore white wings of sailboats. Autographed photos of himself in the company of famous persons did not cover the walls as they did those of his Washington office. Instead there were a few family portraits, a landscape painted by his daughter, a horsemanship trophy from prep school days, a case of books for reference and recreation rather than display. He looked up from the desk, greeted, “Hello. Sit down,” realized how brusque he had been. “Excuse me. I guess I’m more on edge than I knew.”

Stoddard took a swivel chair, leaned back, laid his briefcase across his lap. “Me too, Senator. Mind if I smoke?”

“No.” Moriarty sketched a rueful smile. “Wish I dared.”

“We’re alone.” Stoddard held the pack toward him.

Moriarty shook his head. “No, thanks. Quitting was too hard. I wonder what Churchill would have made of a society where you can’t take a puff any longer if you hope for national office.”

“Unless you’re from a tobacco state.” A match sen tied. “Otherwise, yes, what one does is vote price supports, subsidies, and export assistance for the tobacco industry, while calling for a war on dangerous addictive drugs.”

Damn the son of a bitch! Too bad he was so useful. Well, that jape had cost him the offer of a drink. “Let’s get cracking. How much detail do you have on this affair?”

“How much do you, sir?”

“I read the piece in the Times after you called. It wasn’t very informative.”

“No, I suppose not. Because on the surface, it isn’t much of a story. Another little shootout among the socially deprived of New York City.”

Glee exploded. “But it has a connection to Tannahill!”

“Maybe,” Stoddard cautioned. “All we’re sure of is that members of the Unity were involved, and Tannahill visited its head last month, and it’s a rather strange outfit. Not underground, but ... reclusive? We’d have to spend quite a while digging for information, and it might well prove to be a wild goose chase. Tannahill could have seen the head-...” woman for some completely unrelated reason, like wanting ‘: to write an article. He was definitely at home during the incident. Still is, last I heard.”

Moriarty quelled the interior seething. Is this actually ridiculous? he wondered. Why am I turning the heavy artillery on a gadfly?

Because an instinct that my calling has honed tells me there is something big behind this, big, big. Uncovering it could do more than silence a noisy reactionary. It could lift me into orbit. Four years heUce, eight at most, I could be bringing that new dawn which Tannahill and his night-spooks dread.

He sat back into well-worn, accepting, creaky leather, and set a part of his mind to telling one muscle after the next that it should slack off. “Look,” he said, “you know I haven’t had time to stay abreast of your efforts. Brief me. Begin at the beginning. Never mind if you repeat this or that I’ve heard before. I want the facts arranged orderly for inspection.”

“Yes, sir.” Stoddard opened the case and took out a ma-nila folder. “Suppose I give you a quick summary, from the start, before we go into particulars.”

“Fine.”

Stoddard checked his notes. “I did tell you when Tannahill reappeared in New Hampshire, you remember. We’ve had a tail on him since then. As per your instructions, I notified the FBI of that. The agent I talked to was a little annoyed.”

“He considered me officious, no doubt.” Moriarty laughed. “Better that than seem furtive. And it has planted a bee in their bonnet. Go on.”

“Shortly after his return—do you want dates? Not yet?— shortly afterward, Tannahill went down to New York, took a hotel room, and met a plane from Copenhagen at Kennedy airport. A young woman, uh, flew to his arms when she’d cleared customs, and they were shacked up in that hotel for several days. It looked like a honeymoon situation, sightseeing, fancy restaurants, you know the bit. We checked back, of course. Her name is Olga Rasmussen, Danish citizen but actually from Russia, a refugee. Some puzzling things about her, but it’s hard to do detail work internationally, and expensive. You decide whether we should.

“Meanwhile Tannahill dropped in at Unity headquarters. He didn’t stay long and hasn’t been in touch again, unless he’s got a secret line,” Stoddard said nothing about the legality of any wire taps and Moriarty didn’t inquire. “He and Rasmussen went north to his place. They’ve been there since, not going out much nor doing anything unusual in public. Except ... lately they drove to the nearest airport and brought home a man who’s now their house guest or whatever. We haven’t been able to trace him, apart from indications that he’s from the West Coast. Native American, to judge by his appearance.”

“What sort?” Moriarty asked. “They don’t all look alike.”

“Huh? Well, he’s tall and hawk-faced. Tannahill introduced him to shopkeepers and such in the village as John Wanderer.”

“Hm. West Coast... Well, what about the violence last night?”

“Apparently the local drug baron in that section of New York had his goons make a raid on a tenement that Unity is fixing for its members. He seems to have been trying to force it out before it gets established on his turf. It’s too apt to choke off businesses like his.”

Moriarty searched his memory. “I may have heard a little about Unity before the story today, but I’m not sure. Tell me.”

“They’re obscure,” Stoddard said. “I gather that’s by choice. Stay compact, controllable; keep a low profile. It’s a kind of self-help organization in the poverty classes, but not like any other. Not a church, though it has a religious element—ceremonies, anyhow. Not a militant group, though the members stick together, including on patrols that are more than simple neighborhood watches. However, hitherto they’ve avoided breaking any laws where anybody could see. The president, high priestess, whatever her title is, she’s quite the mystery woman. Black, name of Corinne Macandal. She has a white associate, Rosa Donau, who’s the one involved in the shooting. And that’s about all we’ve turned up so far on Unity.”

“Tell me about the affair,” Moriarty urged. “The account in the paper was so sketchy.”

“I’m afraid mine will be, too. Donau was at this restoration project when the gang broke hi. One of the Unity men had a firearm. Shots were exchanged. He was killed, but not before he’d done for an enemy. Donau was seriously wounded.”

Moriarty nodded. “Saturday night specials. Bullets spraying around. And nevertheless the rednecks quack about the Second Amendment... Continue. Any more casualties?”

“Two unarmed night watchmen had been roughed up. Several other men from Unity were staying at the place, but they had only clubs—well, a couple of permissible-type knives.”

“Bad enough. None of them were hurt?”

“No, nor engaged. After those few shots, the attackers fled. Obviously they hadn’t expected that kind of resistance. My guess is that they intended vandalism, destruction. The Unity people called the police. The dead men went to the morgue, Donau to the hospital. Shot through the chest. Condition serious but stable.”

“M-m-m.” Moriarty tugged his chin and squinted out across the sunlit waters. “I daresay the head honcho—Macandal, is that her name?—she’ll issue a statement expressing shock and disavowing those vigilantes.”

“My impression is they’ll swear it was strictly their own idea.”

“Which might be true. Donau should know more, if she survives. A material witness, at the very least... Yes, I think this was not simply another brawl in the slums.” Triumph trumpeted. “I believe we can find grounds for me to demand a federal investigation of Unity and everybody who’s ever touched it.”

13

“Actually, by and large, Indian men worked as hard as then- women,” Wanderer said. “It was just that the division of labor was sharper than among whites, and the women’s share was what a visitor in camp saw.”

“But wasn’t the men’s part more fun?” Svoboda asked. “Hunting, for instance.” Her expression was rapt. Here she sat in the presence of a man who had been of those fabulous tribes, had experienced the Wild West.

Hanno considered lighting his pipe. Better not. Svoboda disliked it and heM cut back on that account. Probably soon she’d make him quit altogether. Meanwhile, he thought grumpily, why doesn’t she aim a few of her questions my way? I saw a bit of the American frontier too. I knew this land we’re on when it was wilderness.

His gaze went out the nearer window of the living room. Afternoon sunlight glowed across the lawn. At the edge of grass a flowerbed flaunted red, violet, gold below the burglar-alarmed chain link fence that surrounded the property. From here he couldn’t see the driveway sweep in from the county road, through an electrically controlled gate and between stately beech trees to the mansion. Visible instead behind the fence were second-growth woods whose leafage billowed and twinkled under the wind.

A lovely place, this, the ideal retreat after New York, peacefulness in which he and Svoboda could explore each other more deeply and she could get to know Wanderer. But he must return to Seattle and affairs neglected. She’d come along, she’d enjoy the city and adore its hinterland. Wanderer ought to stay behind a while, in case of a message from Macandal... Would those two women ever stop dithering, or whatever they were at? ... Svoboda was anxious to meet Asagao and Tu Shan... He, Hanno, should not think in terms of distracting her from Wanderer. He didn’t own her, he had no right to be jealous, and anyway, there was nothing serious between those two, so far—

The phone rang. Wanderer stopped in mid-sentence. “Go on,” Hanno invited. “It may not need any response.”

The answering machine recited its instructions aloud and beeped. A female voice came, rapid, not quite steady: “Madame Aliyat must speak with Mr. Tannahill. It’s urgent. Don’t call straight back—”

Aliyat! Hanno was already across the room. He snatched the receiver from the antique table. “Hello, Tannahill here, is that you?”

No, he recognized Macandal’s tones. “Parlez-vous français?”

What? His mind leaped. “Oui.” He had maintained his French in serviceable if less than perfect condition, updating as the language evolved, for it was often a valuable tool.

“Désirez-vous parler comme ci? Pourquoi, s’il vous plait?”

She had had less practice in recent decades, talked slowly and haltingly, sometimes required his help in making clear what she meant. Fallen silent, Wanderer and Svoboda heard his speech grow steely, saw his visage stiffen.

“—Bien. Bonne chance. Au revoir, esperons-nous.”

He put the receiver back and turned to his-companions. For a moment only the wind outside gave utterance. Then he said, “First I’ll make sure nobody overhears” and went out. The household staff didn’t eavesdrop, nor interrupt unless necessary, but English was the sole common tongue today.

Returning, he stood arms akimbo before the chairs they swung around and stated into their stares: “That was Corinne Macandal—finally, and not with glad tidings. I wish now I had the New York Times delivered here.” Harshly, he told them about the disaster of night before last.

“Oh, terrible.” Svoboda got up, reaching for him. He didn’t notiee. Wanderer stayed where he was, lynx-alert.

“I’ve worse yet,” Hanno said. “Macandal has friends in certain government departments, especially police.” He recognized the unspoken question on the woman’s lips and threw her a wintry grin. “No, you can’t call them moles. They give her information or early warning, at her request, which is seldom. Nothing for bad purposes, merely so she won’t be caught off base. The sort of precaution an immortal would naturally take. I used to myself, till I got into a position where it was better to steer as clear of government as possible.

“Well, after I’d seen her, she wanted to know about me before committing herself to any course of action, or inaction—know more than I might be willing to reveal. So she inquired of those contacts and discovered that I’ve been under detective surveillance since shortly before our meeting. It’s at the behest of Edmund J. Moriarty. Yes, Neddy, the senator, my Mte noire. Apparently I’ve become his.”

He sighed. “I should have left him alone. I thought I was doing a public service, badgering him; that I owed the United States this slight help, because I honestly doubt it could survive his Presidency. My mistake. I should have concentrated on our own survival. Too late.”

Svoboda had whitened. “The secret police?” she whispered.

“No, no.” Hanno patted her shoulder. “You should know better, after your years in the West, or have you been listening to European leftists? The Republic hasn’t decayed that far yet. I daresay Moriarty has been fishing, in hopes he’ll find something to discredit or incriminate Kenneth Tan-nahill. Macandal doesn’t see it that way. I gather she admires him, because he’s supposedly done things for the poor. She’s been too busy to learn much history. The revelation that he was after me caused her to hang back from further contact. Might I actually be evil? She does have a hell of a lot to lose, not money but a whole life-work.”

“Never mind,” Wanderer said. “Plain to see, in this crisis she felt she had to tip you off regardless.”

“It’s more than that,” Hanno replied. “We talked very circumspectly. A lot of what I tell you, I deduce logically from her indirect words, on the basis of what I knew before. But she checked again with her Washington sources and found she’s now under the eye too. After that gunfight, Moriarty may very well succeed in getting the FBI on the case. That’s the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Svoboda, a sort of national police. The drug connection, if nothing else. Even though Unity’s fought the narcotics traffic more effectively than any branch of government—well, could Tannahill be in it, could he have masterminded that assault? Also, the unfortunate fact is that the member who was killed had a pistol and used it. In New York that’s more illegal than mugging a grandmother. Since the Goetz case, the liberals have been out for blood. Macandal should be able to prove her innocence, but she’ll have a devil of a time first, and ... anything might come out in the course of the investigation.”

“Not to mention that other woman, Aliyat, being in the hospital.”

“Yeah. She hasn’t been interrogated, in her condition, but when they do go to work on her, the fat could be in the fire. During her whorehouse days she was repeatedly arrested. You know the drill, spasm of public morality, hustle the girls off to show your zeal for law enforcement, then let them right back out. She was fingerprinted, over and over, through the years. And the FBI has accumulated the world’s largest collection of fingerprints.”

Wanderer grunted as if hit in the belly. Svoboda caught ; her lip between her teeth.

“Well, Macandal had already decided she should stop hesitating, get in touch with me, try to find out for herself what kind of a guy I am,” Hannfo continued. “Aliyat was to come this weekend as her representative and, hm, scout. An acid test, considering what last happened between us two. : “First they had in mind an express message to set up the meeting, me to reply the same way. But the shooting cut that off. Now she saw she’d better put her suspicions aside and confer in earnest. An exchange of written communications would obviously be too slow and cumbersome. A personal visit would give away too much, and we can’t manage a clandestine one in a hurry. Our phones are quite likely tapped—under the new circumstances, a word from Moriarty would persuade a judge of the proper political faith to allow that—but still seemed the only way. As soon as the police and the press withdrew, she left her house and called me from a member’s place. Chances are, nobody listening in knows French. It should take a little time to get a recording translated, and we used every possible circumlocution. I don’t think we let slip any hard-and-fast evidence that she was the person on the line. Still, she has undoubtedly compromised herself to a greater or lesser degree. It was a brave thing to do.”

“But also necessary,” Svoboda said. “Our secret is in the worst danger it ever has been, no?”

“Mainly she wanted to give me and any other immortals I know an opportunity to get out from under, make ourselves invisible, if we want to.” Hanno lifted a clenched fist. “By God, she has a free heart! I wish I could be as sure about her head. At the moment, she’s for ending the masquerade, making a clean breast of everything.”

“Does she trust the government that much?” Svoboda wondered.

“It wouldn’t be dangerous for her, I should think,” Wanderer said thoughtfully. “Not at first, anyhow. Hard on us, maybe. Especially you, Hanno.”

The Phoenician laughed. “I’d go hoarse, listing my crimes aloud. Just for openers, all those false identities of mine, complete with Social Security dog tags and annual tax returns, not to mention assorted licenses, birth and death certificates, passports—oh, I’ve been a desperate character, I have.”

“You might be let off easy, even pardoned,” Wanderer said. “And the rest of us, for our petty offenses. We’d be such a sensation.” He grimaced. “At worst, some years in jail wouldn’t matter too greatly to us.” His tone belied the words. It recalled roofless heavens and boundless horizons.

“No, it would be hellishly dangerous,” Hanno declared. “It might well become lethal, for us and a lot of bystanders. I couldn’t explain why over the phone, what with the haste and the probable listeners and her poor French, but I did convince Macandal we must consider the possible consequences before we let our cat out of the bag—that a snap judgment would be completely irresponsible.”

Wanderer’s voice went dry. “From what you’ve told me about her, that was an argument she found hard to resist.”

“She knows from Aliyat I’ve been around a long time. Tentatively, she’ll credit me with more knowledge of the world than she has. She’ll disappear and lie low till we can better assess the situation.”

“How’s she going to pull that off?”

“Oh, it is easy, rf she has an organization loyal to her,” Svoboda said. “I can imagine any number of ruses. For ex- ample, let a woman who resembles her come to the house. Inside, they exchange clothes, and Macandal walks out. After dark that should work. Her people will hide her until she can reach a refuge she surely prepared beforehand.”

“Hm, bow shall we and she get in touch later, if we don’t know each other’s locations or aliases?” Wanderer asked.

“She must have told her comrade Aliyat what the possibilities are.”

“How can Aliyat tell us? In fact, why are we wasting air on this chatter, when she’s a prisoner and the cops will shortly have the clues to her nature? Didn’t Macandal point that out to you, Hanno?”

“No,” the other man said. “It hadn’t occurred to her. She was shocked, bewildered, harassed, grieved, exhausted. I’m amazed she could think straight at all. Since I wanted her to make her exit, I refrained from bringing the question up. Besides, the Aliyat matter is not entirely hopeless.”

“Chto?” Svoboda cried. “What do you mean?”

“The truth won’t come out overnight,” Hanno reminded them. “Possibly it never would. I’m not certain that copies of prints from those obscure police files of decades ago ever got to Washington. If they did, or if the investigators get the idea of making a search, that’ll take time. And then, if an identity is found—well, Thomas Jefferson, who was as en-tightened a man as ever lived, once said he could more readily believe that some Yankee professors had lied than that stones fell from the sky. It would be scientifically more respectable to assume there’d been a mixup in the records than that a human being could stay young for fifty or a hundred years.”

Svoboda scowled. “Possession of her would not allow that assumption, I think. And she might decide that telling everything will be to her profit.”

“She might very well,” Hanno agreed, remembering. “Oh, a thousand things could go wrong, from our viewpoint. Let’s see if we can’t take corrective action. For that purpose, and for more obvious reasons, we’ll decamp tonight.”

“The gate is watched, you tell me,” Svoboda said glumly. “How, I do not know. I have not noticed a parked car or men standing on that rural road.”

“Why should you? A battery-powered miniature TV camera in the brush opposite will serve. The road dead-ends at the lake, you may recall. Bound anywhere else, you head hi the opposite direction and pass the Willows Lodge. No doubt two or three persons checked in a little while ago and spend more time in their cabin than is usual for vacationers.”

“You can glorify modern technology as much as you want,” Wanderer growled. “Me, more and more I feel the walls closing in.”

“How shall we evade them?” Svoboda asked. Dread and despair had yielded to keenness.

Hanno grinned. “Every fox has two holes to his burrow. Let’s pack what we’ll need. I keep plenty of cash on hand, together with traveler’s checks, credit cards, assorted ID not made out to Tannahill. I’ll hand the servants a plausible story, which’ll contain a red herring. Tonight— A panel at the rear of the fence swings aside without touching off the alarm, if you know what to do. It gives on the woods, and the village is three miles beyond that. There’s a man there, lives alone, grumpy old bachelor type, who likes my magazine except he complains it’s too leftish. I always try to cultivate somebody, whenever I maintain a base for any span of time, somebody I can rely on to do me an occasional favor and not mention it to anyone else. He’ll drive us to where we can get a bus or train. We’ll probably be smart to switch conveyances en route, but we’ll still be in New York tomorrow.”

14

The hospital building might well be a hundred years old, brick dark with grime, windows not lately washed. The modernization inside was minimal. This was for the poor, the indigent, the victims of accident and violence. Its neighbors were as drab. The traffic that rumbled and screeched about them was mostly commercial and industrial. The air was foul with its fumes.

A taxi drew up at the curb. Hanno passed the driver a twenty-dollar bill. “Wait here,” he directed. “We’re fetching a friend. She’ll be pretty weak, needs to get home right away.”

“I’ll hafta circle the block if ya take too long,” the driver warned.

“Circle it fast, then, and park again whenever you see a chance. This is worth a nice tip.”

The driver looked dubious, understandable considering the institution. Svoboda ostentatiously jotted down his name and number. Hanno followed her out and closed the door. He carried a parcel, she an overnight bag. “Remember, now, this will only work if we behave as though we owned the accounts receivable office,” he muttered.

“ You remember I have been a sharpshooter and slipped through the Iron Curtain,” she answered haughtily.

“Uh, sorry, that was a stupid thing for me to say. I’m distracted. Ah, there he is.” Hanno inclined his head hi the direction of Wanderer. Shabbily clad, hat pulled low, the Indian slouched along the sidewalk tike one with nothing better to do.

Hanno and Svoboda entered a gloomy lobby. A uniformed guard cast them an incurious glance. Even these patients sometimes got visitors. Reconnoitering yesterday, they had ascertained that no police guard was on Rosa Do-nau. She had automatically been taken here and it was deemed unsafe to transfer her to a better hospital when the word came that money was available to pay for that. Therefore this place’s security ought to suffice.

Hanno sought a men’s room. It was unoccupied, but he entered a stall to be cautious. Opening his parcel, he unfolded a smock coat and donned it. He’d acquired it, plus a lot of other stuff, at a medical supply firm. It wasn’t quite identical with what the orderlies wore, but should get by if nobody had cause to look closely. Outfits faded or stained were more the rule than the exception. He dropped the wrapping in a trash can and rejoined Svoboda. They took an elevator upward.

They had learned yesterday that Rosa Donau was on the seventh floor. The receptionist had told them she could only have very brief visits, and remarked on how many people came, anxiously inquiring.

Two women had been on hand when Hanno and Svoboda walked into the ward. They had brought flowers, which they could probably HI afford. Hanno smiled at them, went to the bedside, bent over the victim. She lay white, hollow-cheeked, shallowly breathing. He would not have recognized her had he not seen the pictures his detectives took for him. Indeed, without the hunch than this was she, he might well never have known her by those snapshots. It had been a long, long time. He hoped that her Romaic Greek was no rustier than his. After all, he supposed, she’d mostly been in the Levant before coming to America. “Aliyat, my friend and I believe we can smuggle you out. Do you want that? Otherwise you’ll lose your liberty forever, you know. I have money. I can give you the freedom of the world. Do you want to escape?”

She lay mute for a moment that stretched, before she barely nodded.

“Well, do you think you can walk a short distance and make it look natural? A hundred meters, perhaps. We’ll help you, but if you fall, we’ll have to leave you and flee.”

A ghost of color tinged her skin. “Yes,” she whispered, unthinkingly in English.

“Tomorrow afternoon, then. Make sure you have no callers. Tell these people you feel worse and need a few days undisturbed. Ask them to spread the word. Husband your strength.”

He straightened, to meet the stares of the women from Unity. “I wasn’t aware she’s in this serious a condition,” he told them. “Otfterwise I’d have let her know beforehand my wife and I were coming.”

“You from out of town?” asked one.

“Yes. We hadn’t seen her for quite a while, but we read about the, uhr incident, and since we’re of her nationality and had business in New York anyway—Well, I am sorry. We’d better go, Olga. We’ll see you later, Rosa, when you’re more recovered. Take care.” He and Svoboda patted the limp hands. They left.

A walk around the seventh-floor halls, a quick peek into the ward as they went by, revealed no sign of a trap. If Aliyat didn’t actually wish to leave, with the hazards and pains that meant, she could help herself by spilling the truth and ratting on Hanno. He had gambled on her distrust of authority being too ingrained, after her many centuries, or at least on her having the shrewdness to foresee that confession would close out every other choice.

This entire operation was a gamble. If it failed, and he and Svoboda could not make a getaway— He mustn’t let worry dull his wits and sap his energy.

“Damn,” he said. “No wheelchair. Let’s try the next floor down.”

They got lucky there. Wheelchairs, gurneys, and the like commonly stood unattended in the corridors. He took what he wanted and pushed it briskly to the elevator. A nurse glanced at him, parted her lips, half shrugged and hurried onward. The staff was overworked, underpaid, and doubtless had considerable turnover on that account. Svoboda trailed him at a discreet distance, pretending to look for a room number.

Back on seven, they proceeded to Aliyat’s ward. Speed was now the key to everything. Svoboda entered first. If a nurse or doctor was present, they’d have to continue prowling around, biding their chance. She stepped back to the doorway and beckoned. His heart bumped. He went in past her.

The dingy room held a double row of beds, most occupied. Some patients watched the televisions above either row, some dozed, some were vegetables, a few looked at tiie newcomer, but dully. None questioned him. Hanno hadn’t expected they would. An environment like this was ghastly deadening. Aliyat too had fallen asleep. She blinked her eyes open when he touched her shoulder. Abruptly he did know her again, the ferret alertness that she had dissembled until too late for him, last time around.

He beamed. “All right, Ms. Donau, let’s go for those lab tests, shall we?” be said. She nodded and visibly braced herself. Oh, she knew this would hurt. He kept old sailor skills, such as carrying loads carefully, and while his body wasn’t that of any Hercules, its wiriness had never flagged. He bent his knees, took hold, swung her from bed to chair. Her arms crept about his neck. He felt a brief, roguish flirt of fingers in his hair. He also heard the sharply indrawn breath.

Svoboda had kept aside, and continued to do so while he wheeled Aliyat to the elevator. She took it together with them. Yesterday he and she had found what they wanted on the second floor, minimizing the distance Aliyat must go on her feet. It was another gamble that the hydrotherapy bath would be vacant, but a fairly safe bet at this time of day.

Hanno took Aliyat in, told her in a few words what came next, and left. Somebody else was walking by. Hanno went the opposite way, his expression preoccupied. Svoboda dawdled until she could slip in unobserved, carrying her overnight bag.

Again Hanno took shelter in a men’s room and spent an agreed-on ten minutes by his watch, seated on a toilet and contemplating graffiti. They were uniformly vulgar and semi-literate. I should raise the tone of this joint, he decided. Anything to keep from fretting. He undipped a pen, located a clear space, and printed carefully: “ x n + y” = z° has no integral solution for all n greater than two. I have found a marvelous proof of this theorem, but there is not room in this stall to write it down.”

Time. He left his smock behind and returned to the bath. Svoboda was just emerging; splendid girl. Aliyat leaned on her, no longer in a hospital gown but a dress, stockings, shoes, a lightweight coat that covered the bulges of bandages. Svoboda had kept the bag. Hanno joined them and lent his support. “How’re you doing?” he asked in English.

Air (and blood?) rattled. “I’ll make it,” Aliyat gasped, “but—oh, shit—no, never mind.” Her weight pulled at him. She minced along, unevenly, now and then staggering. Sweat studded her face and reeked in his nostrils. He had seen corpses less blue-pale.

Nevertheless she moved. And it was as though she gained a bit of strength thereby, until you could almost say she walked. That’s the wild card in my hand, Hanno thought. The vitality of the immortal. No normal human could do this so soon after such a wounding.

But she won’t be able to, either, unless she draws on whatever wellsprings are her own.

In the downbound elevator, she sagged. Hanno and Svoboda upheld her. “You must be firm and walk straight,” the Ukrainian said. “It is only for a little way. Then you can rest. Then you will be free.”

Aliyat peeled lips back from teeth. “There’s ... a dance ... hi the old dame ... yet.”

When they emerged in the lobby, she didn’t exactly stride, but you’d have to look hard to notice how much help she needed. Hanno’s eyes flickered back and forth. Where the hell— Yes, yonder sat the Indian, on the split and peeling plastic of a settee, thumbing through a decrepit magazine.

Wanderer saw them, lurched to his feet, reeled against a man passing by. “Hey,” he shouted, “why’n’chu look where ya going?” with an obscenity added for good measure.

“There’s the front door,” Hanno murmured in Aliyat’s ear. “Hup, two, three, four.”

Wanderer’s altercation loudened on his right. It caught everybody’s attention. A couple of guards pushed toward him. Hanno hoped he wouldn’t overdo it. The idea was to provide two or three minutes’ distraction without getting arrested, merely expelled— Trouble with Wanderer, he’s a gentleman by instinct, he doesn’t have the talent for acting a belligerent drunk. He does have brains, however, and tact.

Into the open. Dusty though it was, sunlight momentarily dazzled. The taxi stood at the curb. Hermes, god of travelers, merchants, and thieves, thanks.

Hanno helped Aliyat in. She slumped bonelessly and struggled for breath. Svoboda took her other side. Hanno gave an address. The cab started off. As it wove its way through congestion and squawks, Aliyat’s weight swayed to and fro. Svoboda felt beneath her coat, nodded pinch-lipped, took a towel from the bag and held it in place, more or less concealed. To blot up blood, Hanno knew; the injury was hemorrhaging.

“Say, that lady all right?” the driver asked. “Looks to me like they shouldn’t of let her go.”

“Schartz-Metterklume syndrome,” Hanno explained. “She does need to get home and to bed as fast as you can make it.”

“Yeah,” Aliyat rasped. “Cmon and see me tomorrow, big boy.”

The driver widened his mouth and rolled his eyes, but pushed on. At the destination, Hanno redeemed his promise of a lavish tip. It should buy silence, did pursuit guess that a taxi had been involved. Not that the story would help the police much, by that time.

“Around the corner,” Svoboda told Aliyat. “Half a block.”

Red dripped onto the sidewalk. Nobody else seemed to notice, or if they did, they chose not to get involved. Hanno had counted on that.

A small moving van stood in a parking garage. Hanno had rented it yesterday, contracting to turn it in at Pocatello, Idaho. Its bulk screened from casual glances how her companions lifted Aliyat into the body of it. A foam mattress and bedding waited, together with what medical supplies one could readily buy. Hanno and Svoboda peeled her clothes off. They washed her, applied an antibiotic, dressed the wound anew, made her as comfortable as they could.

“I think she will recover,” Svoboda said.

“Damn straight I will,” Aliyat mumbled.

“Leave us,” Svoboda ordered Hanno. “I will care for her.”

The Phoenician obeyed. She’d been a soldier, who knew first aid; she’d been a veterinarian, and humans aren’t vastly unlike their kindred. He closed the tail doors on them and settled himself to wait in the cab. At least he could indulge in a pipe of tobacco now, and a slight case of the shakes.

Before long, Wanderer arrived. Hanno had rarely seen him this joyful. “Whoopee ti-yi-yo,” he warbled.

“Maybe I better take the first stretch at the wheel,” Hanno said: The van growled to life. He paid the parking fee and set forth westward.

15

It was natural that Mr. and Mrs. Tu would arrange a picnic for their guests, the people they’d met in the cities, but the kids were disappointed that they weren’t invited too. These seemed like real interesting folks, in spite of not saying much about themselves. First was convalescent Miss Adler, whom the Tus met in Pocatello and drove here; she was mending so fast that her trouble couldn’t have been too bad. The rest had to stay at the hotel hi town but spent their days on the ranch: Mr. and Mrs. Tazurin, Mr. Langford, who admitted he was an Indian, and black Miss Edmonds, all different from each other and from everybody else.

Well, probably they wanted to be alone and talk about plans, like maybe for enlarging the house, making room for more fosterlings. They did act pretty solemn, nice enough but not like vacationers. Mostly they, including the Tus, strolled off by twos and threes, gone for hours.

On the brow of a hill that commanded a wide and beautiful view, Tu Shan had long since assembled a redwood table and benches. The party parked their cars nearby and got out. For a while they stood silent, looking. Halfway up the eastern sky, the sun made a few clouds as brilliant as the western snowpeaks. Between stretched a thousand greens, range, cropland, trees along the lazily shining river. A pair of hawks wheeled aloft, their wings edged with gold. A breeze mildened the air. It murmured and smelled of ripeness.

“Let’s talk before we unload the eats,” Hanno proposed. That was unnecessary, having been understood, but it got things started. Humans were apt to put off making difficult decisions, and immortals especially so. “I hope we can finish in time to relax and enjoy ourselves, but if need be we’ll wrangle till sundown. That’s the deadline, agreed?”

He sat down. Svoboda joined him on his right, Wanderer on the left. Opposite them were benched Tu Shan, Asagao, Aliyat, and she whose name among them remained Corinne Macandal. Yes, Hanno thought, in spite of having tried to get well acquainted and become a fellowship, we still un-noticingly divide up according to the partnerships we had.

None would have accepted a chairman, but one person had to take the initiative andWhe was the senior. “Let me summarize the agenda,” he said. “I can’t tell you anything new or unobvious. However, maybe I can save us further repetition.

“The basic question is, shall we surrender to the government and reveal to the world what we are, or shall we continue our masquerade, using new masks?

“On the surface, there’s no great hue and cry out for us. Rosa Donau was spirited from the hospital. Corinne Macandal dropped from sight. Likewise did Kenneth Tannahill and a couple of house guests, but that was elsewhere, and he often goes out of town, is away much more than he is at home. No sensation in the news, not even Rosa’s disappearance. She’s obscure, few people really care about the patients in that hospital, nobody has claimed she was kidnapped or otherwise met foul play, and in fact none of the persons I’ve named are charged with anything.

“I thought that must be too good to be true, and Corinne ., informs me it is. She’s queried her connections—twice, was it?—from her hiding places. Ned Moriarty is still very interested. The FBI thinks the matter is worth looking into. Could possibly involve drugs or espionage or antics less spectacular but just as unlawful. Have you any later information, Corinne?”

Macandal shook her head. “No,” she replied quietly, “nor will I. Already I’ve put more strain on the honor of those men than I should have. I won’t call them again.”

“I’ve pipelines of my own, from Seattle,” Hanno said, “but using them gets dicier for every day that passes. Tan-nahill is associated with Tomek Enterprises. The FBI will at least be inquiring into that. They may decide there’s nothing to it, that Tomek’s friends have no idea why Tannahill vamoosed. However, they certainly will not if they discover that those friends showed some awareness of the situation earlier. I’d rather not take that risk. We’ve a plenty as is.”

He leaned forward, elbows on table. “In short,” he finished, “if we want to stay concealed, we’ll have to do a total job of it. Abandon everything as fast as possible, permanently. Including this ranch. Tomek brought Shan and Asagao over and installed them here. Somebody will come around to ask some questions. He’ll probably hear gossip about those visitors you had, so soon after the suspicious events. Once he gets descriptions of them, that’s all she wrote.”

Aliyat’s voice trembled a little. She could walk by now, within limits, and color was back in her face, but it would be a few weeks yet before her full recovery, in body or spirit. “Then we can’t go. We have to give up. Or else ... be poor again—homeless—no,”

Hanno smiled. “Have you forgotten what I’ve told you, or don’t you believe me?” he answered. “I’ve squirreled money and other reserves away, around a large part of the world, for close to a hundred years. I have places to live, excellent cover stories, all details taken care of. Yes, periodically checked and updated. We can disperse or we can go live together, as we individually choose, but we’ll be comfortable for at least the next fifty years, if this civilization lasts that long, and well prepared if it doesn’t. Meanwhile we can be laying the foundations of fresh careers.”

“Are you sure?”

“I know considerable about this myself,” Wanderer said.

“I am sure. If you’re afraid, Aliyat, why did you let us boost you out of that bed?”

Her eyes flickered. “I was dazed, didn’t know what to think, hardly could think. I had an idea of buying time.”

“That was my notion too,” Wanderer told the group. “I kept my mouth shut, like her, but today we must be honest.”

Despite their comradeship, Hanno was jolted. “Huh?” he exclaimed. “You mean we should turn ourselves in? Why?”

The response was grave: “If nothing else, I’ve heard Sam Giannotti on the subject. Once the world knows immortality is possible, they should be able to give it to everybody inside of—ten years? Twenty? Molecular biology’s already far along. Have we the right to sit on the knowledge? How many millions or billions would we condemn to unnecessary death?”

Hanno sensed the undertone and pounced. “You don’t sound too convinced.”

Wanderer grimaced like a man in pain. “I’m “not. I had to spell the issue out, but— Could Earth survive?” He waved at the living land around them. “How long before this would be under concrete, or polluted into an open sewer? Humans are already swamping in their own numbers. I wonder if it’s possible to escape the big dieback, or the extinction. We could hasten that day a lot.”

“They’d practice birth control, when they didn’t need children to carry on for them,” Macandal said.

“How many would?” Svoboda challenged. “Nor could the, the serum reach everybody at once. I foresee riots, revolutions, terror.”

“Must it be that bad?” Tu Shan asked. “People will know what to expect before it happens. They can prepare. I do not want to lose what we have here.”

“Nor forsake our children,” Asagao added.

“And what would become of the Unity?” Macandal put in. She turned to Aliyat. “You know what it means to you. Think of the whole membership, your brothers and sisters.”

The Syrian woman bit her lip before responding, “We’ve lost the Unity anyway, Corinne. If we came out in public, we couldn’t be the same to its people. We wouldn’t have time for them, either. And the whole world watching— No, the only way for the Unity to keep going, anything like what it was, is for us to disappear. If it’s as strong as we hope, it’ll find new leadership. If not, well, then it wasn’t that great after all.”

“So you want to hide, now you know you’ll be safe?”

“I didn’t say that. Uh, I don’t expect we’d have much in the way of legal problems. Even Hanno can probably pay fines, and make twice as much off lectures and a book and movie rights and endorsements and ... everything the biggest celebrities the world’ll ever see, short of the Second Coming, everything we’ll be offered.”

“Except peace.” Asagao’s voice came troubled. “No, I fear— Shan, my husband, I fear we would never again have freedom of the soul. Let us make provision for the children and then let us retire, retreat, and seek for tranquility and virtue.”

“I hate to lose this land,” Tu Shan protested.

“Aliyat’s right, you’d be hounded off it regardless,” Hanno warned. “Or taken into protective custody. You’ve lived sheltered lives, you two. You don’t know how many murderous types are out there. Lunatics, fanatics, the insanely jealous, the little snots who’ll kill just to get noticed at last. Until immortality was common, I suspect we’d still need a squad of bodyguards around the clock for decades, before we got taken for granted. No, let me show you some fresh countryside.”

He turned to Aliyat. “That kind of existence may look glamorous to you, my dear,” he continued. “Riches, high society, fame, fun. Maybe you wouldn’t mind the dangers, the need for guards—“ he chuckled—“provided they’re young, handsome, and virile, eh? But please think deeper. How much actual freedom would you have, how much real opportunity?”

“You spoke of finding meaning, purpose, in the Unity,” Svoboda said softly, to Aliyat and Macandal both. “Can we not win to it together, we seven? Can we not work secretly for what is good, and do it better than in a glare of light and storm of noise?”

Aliyat’s hand lay on the table. Macandal reached to take it in hers.

“Of course, if any of us wants to go out and reveal himself or herself, the rest of us have no way of preventing it,” Hanno said. “We can only ask that you give us time to get well hidden. For my part, I intend to; and I and whoever goes with me will not leave behind any clues to our whereabouts. For one thing, I don’t want to be around and visible when this country becomes the People’s Republic of America”

“I do not agree that is inevitable,” Macandal said. “We may be past that stage of history.”

“Maybe. I’ll keep my options open.”

“That would stick anybody who wanted to unmask with a problem,” Wanderer observed. “You’ve tucked away evidence that you’re an immortal, but how could we others prove we weren’t lying or crazy?”

“I think we could provide enough indications that the authorities would be willing to wait and see,” Macandal said meditatively.

Hanno nodded. “Also,” he admitted, “Sam Giannotti whom I’ve told you about, he’d doubtless feel released from his vow of silence, and he’s a respected man.”

“Might he talk if we all disappeared?” Svoboda wondered.

“No, in that case he’ll have nothing to back so wild a story, and better sense than to spread it. He’ll be heartbroken, poor decent fellow, but he’ll plug on with the research. I’ll try to arrange continued funding for the Rufus Lab, mainly for his sake.”

“Do you really mean to liquidate your companies?” Macandal asked. “You would lose ... what? Hundreds of millions of dollars?”

“I have plenty hoarded, and I can make more,” Hanno assured her. “The termination must be done as plausibly as is consistent with speed. Tomek will die and be cremated abroad, in accordance with his wishes. Robert Cauldwell— m-m, something similar had better happen to him, because unfortunately, he’s left a potential trail. Joe Levine will get a job offer from an out-of-state firm... Oh, I’ll be busy for the rest of this year, but I do have standing preparations for a variety of emergencies, and I expect I can make things fade out in natural-looking ways. There’ll be loose ends, inevitably; but then, there generally are in ordinary life, and the investigators will leave them dangling once it seems dear they wouldn’t lead to anything much. Policemen don’t lack for work, you know. Their lot is not a happy one.”

“But you could do so much with the money,” she begged. “Yes, and with the power you, we, would have, the influence of our fame, in spite of any drawbacks. So much that cries out for doing.”

“Do you feel we are being selfish in wanting to stay hidden?” Svoboda queried.

“Well— Do you, then, want to?”

“Yes. And not for myself, or ourselves. I am afraid for the world.”

Wanderer nodded. Svoboda smiled at him, warmly though without mirth. “You don’t quite understand,” she said in his direction. “You think of nature destroyed, the environment. But I think of humankind. I have seen revolutions, wars, breakdowns, ruin, for a thousand years. We Russians have learned to fear anarchy above all else. We would rather have tyranny than it. Hanno, you do wrong to look on people’s republics, strong governments of every kind, as always evil. Freedom is perhaps better, but chaos is worse. If we let go our secret today, we let loose unforeseeable forces. Religion, politics, economics—yes, how shall a world of immortals order its economy?—a million contending dreams and dreads, for which men will war around the world. Can civilization itself endure that? Can the planet?”

“Muhammad came out of nowhere,” Aliyat whispered.

“And many another prophet, revolutionary, conqueror,” Svoboda said. “The intentions can be noble. But who foresaw that the idea of democracy hi France would bring the Reign of Terror, Napoleon, and a generation of war? Who foresaw that after Marx and Lenin would come Stalin and, yes, Hitler? The world volcano already smokes and shivers. Put this new thing in it that nobody ever thought of before, and I would hope for a tyranny that can prevent the final explosion; but I wonder if any such rule will be possible.”

“It won’t be for lack of trying,” Hanno said. He had turned entirely grim. “At the bare least, every corrupt politician and fat cat in the West, every totalitarian dictatorship abroad, every dirty little warlord who battens on backwardness, all will jump to screw down then- power forever. Yes, death robs us of our loves and finally of ourselves. But death is also good riddance to bad rubbish. Do we dare change that? My friends, being ageless does not make us gods, and most certainly does not make us God.”

16

Nearly full, the moon frosted earth with light and dappled it with shadow. Air had gone still, but hour by hour a breath of autumn flowed down from the mountains. Somewhere an owl hooted, hunting. Windows glowed yellow in houses strewn across miles. They seemed almost as remote as the stars.

Hanno and Svoboda had driven from town, out onto the range, to walk alone. The wish was hers. “Tomorrow evening what was ours begins coming to an end,” she had said. “Can we steal a last few hours of peace? This country is very like the homeland I once had, wide and lonely.”

Their footfalls crunched on a dirt road. He broke a lengthy silence. “You spoke of peace,” he said. Voices were, small in the vastness. “We’ll have it again, dear. Yes, we’ve got a frantic time to go through first, and it’ll hurt, but afterward— I believe the whole seven of us will be glad of the place we’re going to.”

“I am sure it is lovely,” she replied, “and we will be safely away from the world for as long as we need to be.”

“Not forever, remember. In fact, that wouldn’t work. We’re only gaining another mortal lifetime, the same as so often before. Then we’ll have to start fresh under new masks.”

“I know. Until someday, perhaps soon, the scientists find immortality by themselves, and we may as well come forth.”

“Someday,” he said, more skeptically than enthusiastically.

“That is not what I think about, though,” Svoboda went on. “Now we must think about us. We seven. It will not be easy. We are so different. And ... three men, four women.”

“We’ll work out our arrangements.”

“For the rest of time? Nothing to change, ever?”

“Well—“ She could hear the reluctance. “Of course none of us can bind the rest. We’ll each be free to leave, whenever we like. I do hope we’ll stay in touch and ready to give help. Isn’t freedom the whole of what we’re trying to keep?”

“No, I do not feel that is enough,” she told him gravely. “There must be more. I do not know what it is, not yet. But we must have something beyond survival to live for, or we shall not survive. The future will be too strange.”

“The future always was,” he answered from his three thousand years.

“What is coming, more strange than ever before.” She raised her eyes. Stars gleamed through the moon-glow, golden-red Arcturus, blue-white Altair, Polaris of the sailors, Vega where lately men had found spoor of planets. “In Odysseus, Hamlet, Anna Karenina, we still see ourselves. But tomorrow, will they know those people, or us? Can we understand them, our children?”

She caught his left arm. He laid his right hand across hers, for whatever comfort that might give in the night.

They had talked of this already, a little. Once, while they rested for a day on their long journey from the east, she had guided him in trying to imagine what might happen...