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
