can’t tell you. At best, I can offer a suggestion or two. The choice must be yours.
“If you refuse, if you stay in your narrow existence with your fossil soul, you’ll be more and more isolated, you’ll find less and less meaning in anything, and at last you’ll choose death because it is not that lonely.”
Aliyat drew the ancient air into her lungs. “I kept going this long,” she said. “I’m not about to give up.”
“I’m glad to hear that. I expected it of you. But think, my dear, think. Meanwhile, best I go.”
“Yes,” Aliyat said. The image vanished.
After some minutes Aliyat rose. She stalked the floor. It yielded slightly, deliciously to her feet. Byzantium surged around her. “Blank that scene,” she snapped. Pastel blue succeeded it. “Delivery Service.” A panel came into existence, ready to open an orifice.
What do I want? A happy pill? Chemistry tailored to me, harmless, instant cheerfulness, head quite clear, probably more clear than it is at this moment. In the bad old days we got drunk or smoked dope, abused our bodies and our brains. Now science has mapped how feelings work, and everybody is sane every hour of the twenty- four.
Everybody who decides to be.
Hanno, Wanderer, Shan, Patulcius, where are you? Or— never mind sex, that’s an old-fashioned consolation, isn’t it?—Corinne, Asagao, Svoboda—whatever you’re calling yourselves, a name’s become as changeable as a garment— where are you? Which of you can come to me, or I to you? We had our fellowship after we got together, we were the only immortals and the middle of each other’s universe whUe time blew by outside like the wind, but since we came forth we’ve drifted apart, we meet by accident and seldom, we say hello and try to talk and feel relieved when it ends. Where are my brothers, my sisters, my loves?
4
While he flew, communications verified that Wanderer was the person he claimed to be and had a permit to visit the control reserve. His car landed as directed, in a parking lot outside town, and he emerged suitcase in hand. Many everyday things, such as clothes, were not spot-produced here. He had reached—not exactly a hermit community, not a settlement of eccentrics trying to re-create a past that never was—but a society that went its own way and held much of the world at arm’s length.
The lot was near the water’s edge. Weather Service maintained the original Pacific Northwest climate as closely as was feasible. Clouds hung heavy. Mist swirled on the bay, making vague the rocks that towered from the waves, mysterious, like a Chinese painting. The conifer forest stood mighty behind the village, its darkness hardly relieved by splashes of bracken. Yet this was all alive, in silver-gray, white, black, greens deep or bright and asparkle with remnant raindrops. Surf boomed and whispered. Seals barked hoarsely, gulls hovered and dipped and mewed. Breath went cool, moist, tangy through nostrils to blood.
A man waited. Clad in plain shirt and work pants, he was stocky and brown-skinned. Not many whites among his ancestors, Wanderer decided. What had they been, then? Makah, Quinault? No difference. Tribes were hardly even names any more.
“Hello, Mr. Wanderer.” There was an anachronism for you. The man extended his hand. Wanderer took it, felt calluses and sturdiness. “Welcome. I’m Charlie Davison.” ‘ Wanderer had practiced old-time American English before he left Jalisco. “Glad to meet you. I didn’t expect this. Figured I’d get acquainted on my own.”
“Well, we talked it over in the Council and decided this was better. You’re not just another jako.” That must be local slang for the few hundred outsiders a year allowed to experience the wilderness. It sounded mildly contemptuous. “Nor a scientist or official agent, are you?”
“N-no.”
“Come on, I’ll see you to the hotel, and later I’ll sort of introduce you around.” They started off. Soon they were on an unpaved road where puddles glimmered. “Because you’re a Survivor.”
Wanderer’s smile twitched rueful. “I didn’t want to advertise that right away.”
“We ran a routine check before agreeing you could come, same as we do for everybody. You eight may go pretty much unnoticed, but you sure were famous once. Your background popped right out of the scan. Word got around. I hate to say this, nothing personal, but you’ll find some folks here who resent you.”
That was an ugly surprise. “Really? Why?”
“You Survivors can have children whenever you like.”
“I ... see.” Wanderer considered how to respond. Gravel scrunched underfoot. “Jealousy isn’t reasonable, though. We’re freaks of nature. A crazy combination of genes, including several unlikely mutations, that doesn’t breed true. Normal human beings who don’t want to age have to undergo the process. Well, we can’t then let them reproduce freely. Remember your history, population explosion, the Great Death, and that was before athanatics.”
“I know.” Davison sounded a bit miffed. “Who doesn’t?”
“Sorry, but I have met quite a few who don’t. They think history’s too depressing to study. I point out to them that they’ll have their chance to be parents eventually. There are accidental losses to make up, and interplanetary colonies may yet be founded.”
“Yeah. The waiting list for children was several centuries long, last time I looked.”
“Ufa-hub. But as for us Survivors, ever hear of a grandfather clause? By revealing ourselves, we opened up a treasure trove for scholars. Fair is fair. As a matter of fact, we hardly ever do become parents.” We hardly ever have partners who are eligible. And any offspring we have grew too soon alien.
“I understand all that,” Davison said. “I don’t object, myself, I’m only telling you we’d better be, uh, tactful. That’s a reason why I met you.”
“I do appreciate it.” Wanderer attempted to drive his point home: “You might remind those objectors to my status that they can beget kids every bit as lawfully, no limit.”
“Because they’re willing to shrivel and die in a hundred years or less.”
“That’s the bargain. They can drop out whenever they choose, get youth restored if they’ve lost it, join the immortals. There is simply that small, necessary price to pay.”
“Sure, sure, sure,” Davison snapped. “Think we’ve never heard?” After half a dozen strides: “My turn to say, ‘Sorry.’ I didn’t mean to sound mad. To most of us, you’ll be very welcome. What yarns you have to spin!”
“Nothing you can’t play off the databank, I’m afraid,” Wanderer said. “We were questioned and interviewed dry many years ago.”
Generations before you were born, Charlie, if your lineage is purely mortal. How old are you? Forty, fifty? I see white sown through your hair and crow’s-feet at your eyes.
“Not the same,” Davison answered. “Good Lord, I’m in company with a man who knew Sitting Bull!” Actually, Wanderer had not, but he let it pass. “Hearing it from you in person means so much more. Don’t you forget, our whole idea is to live naturally, like God intended.”
“That’s why I’ve come.”
Davison’s pace faltered. He stared. “What? We supposed you were ... interested, like the rest of our visitors.”
“I am. Of course. But more than that. I guess we’d better not mention this immediately. However, I think I might settle here, if people will have me.”
“You?” asked amazement.
“I go way back, you know. To the tribes, the brotherhoods, rites and beliefs and traditions, living by our wits and .hands off the land and of the land. Oh, I’m not romantic about it. I remember the drawbacks too clearly, and would certainly not want to revive, say, the horse barbarians. But still, damn it, we had a, a oneness with our world such as ‘doesn’t exist now, except maybe among you.”
They were entering the village. Boats rocked at the wharf; men fished for the local market. Kitchen gardens and apple trees burgeoned behind neatly made wooden houses. Mere supplements, Wanderer must remind himself, like their handicrafts. The dwellers spend share and order stuff delivered, same as the rest of us. For added earnings, some of them take care of these woods and waters; or they attend to the tourists; or they do brainwork out of their homes, over the computer net. They haven’t disowned the modern world.
He thrust away memories of what he had witnessed elsewhere around the planet, the deaths slow or swift,
