Full text of "Time Enough For Love"

Robert A. Heinlein Time Enough For Love The Lives of Lazarus Long ©Bitsoup.org© For Bill and Lucy This Berkley book contains the complete text of the original hardcover edition. It has been completely reset in a typeface designed for easy reading and was printed from new film. TIME ENOUGH FOR LOVE A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with G. P. Putnam’s Sons PRINTING HISTORY G. P. Putnam’s Sons edition published 1973 G.P. Putnam’s / Berkley edition / January 1 974 Twenty-fourth printing / March 1986 All rights reserved. Copyright© 1973 by Robert A. Heinlein. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission. For information address: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 200 Madison Avenue, New York. New York 10016. ISBN: 0-425-07990-2 A BERKLEY BOOK ® TM 757.375 Berkley Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group, 200 Madison Avenue. New York, NY 10016. The name ‘BERKLEY’ and the stylized “B” with design are trademarks belonging to Berkley Publishing Corporation. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA CONTENTS INTRODUCTION PRELUDE COUNTERPOINT I J! VARIATIONS ON A THEME I Affairs of State II The Tale of the Man Who Was Too Lazy to Fail III Domestic Problems COUNTERPOINT VARIATIONS ON A THEME IV Love COUNTERPOINT JV VARIATIONS ON A THEME V Voices in the Dark VI The Tale of the Twns Who Weren’t VII Valhalla to Landfall VIII Landfall IX Conversation Before Dawn X Possibilities INTERMISSION — Excerpts from the Notebooks of Lazarus Long VARIATIONS ON A THEME XI The Tale of the Adopted Daughter XII The Tale of the Adopted Daughter fcontinuecO SECOND INTERMISSION — More from the Notebooks of Lazarus Long VARIATIONS ON A THEME XIII Boondock XIV Bacchanalia XV Aaaoe XVI Eros XVII Narcissus DA CAPO I The Green Hills II The End of an Era III Maureen IV Home V Q*lc* O G\ t sm m ' if Q l3 ljuj~i VI r r r ir « - VII CODA J TIME ENOUGH FOR LOVE The Lives of the Senior Member of the Howard Families (Woodrow Wilson Smith; Ernest Gibbons; Captain Aaron Sheffield; Lazarus Long; "Happy" Daze; His Serenity Seraphin the \bunger, Supreme High Priest of the One God in All His Aspects and Arbiter Below and Above; Proscribed Prisoner No. 83M2742; Mr. Justice Lenox; Corporal Ted Bronson; Dr. Lafe Hubert; and others), Oldest Member of the Human Race. This Account is based principally on the Senior's Own Words as recorded at many times and places and especially at the Howard Rejuvenation Clinic and at the Executive Palace in New Rome on Secundus in Year 2053 After the Great Diaspora (Gregorian Year 4272 of Old Home Terra )-and supplemented by letters and by eyewitness accounts, the whole then arranged, collated, condensed, and (where possible) reconciled with official records and contemporary histories, as directed by the Howard Foundation Trustees and executed by the Howard Archivist Emeritus. The result is of unique historical importance despite the Archivist's decision to leave in blatant falsehoods, self-serving allegations, and many amoral anecdotes not suitable for young persons. INTRODUCTION On the Writing of History History has the relation to truth that theology has to religion — i.e., none to speak of. -L.L. The Great Diaspora of the Human Race which started more than two millennia ago when the L i b by-S heffi e Id Drive was disclosed, and which continues to this day and shows no sign of slowing, made the writing of history as a single narrative — or even many compatible narratives — impossible. By the twenty-first century (Gregorian)* (‘Gregorian Terran dates are used throughout, as no other calendar, not even Standard Galactic, is certain to be known to scholars of every planet. Translators should add local dates for clarification. J.F. 45 th ) on Old Home Terra our Race was capable of doubling its numbers three times each century — given space and raw materials. The Star Drive gave both. H. sapiens spread through this sector of our Galaxy at many times the speed of light and multiplied like yeast. If doubling had occurred at the twenty-first-century potential, our numbers would now be of the order of 7 x 10 A 9 x2 A 68-a number so large as to defy emotional grasp; it is suited only to computers: 7 x 10 A 9 x2 A 68 = 2,066,035,336,255,469,780,992,000,000,000. --or more than two thousand million billion trillion people --or a mass of protein twenty-five million times as great as the entire mass of our race's native planet Sol III, Old Home. Preposterous. Let us say that it would be preposterous had not the Great Diaspora taken place, for our race, having reached the potential to double three times each century, had also reached a crisis under which it could not double even once — that knee of the curve in the yeast-growth law in which a population can maintain a precarious stability of zero growth only by killing off its own members fast enough, lest it drown in its own poisons, commit suicide by total war, or stumble into some other form of the Malthusian Final Solution. But the Human Race has not (we think) increased to that monstrous figure because the base figure for the Diaspora must not be thought of as seven billion but rather as a few million at the opening of the Era, plus the unnumbered, small-but-still-growing hundreds of millions since, who have migrated from Earth and from its colony planets to still more distant places over the last two millennia. But we are no longer able to make a reasoned guess at the numbers of the Human Race, nor do we have even an approximate count of the colonized planets. The most we can say is that there must be in excess of two thousand colonized planets, in excess of five hundred billion people. The colonized planets may be twice that number, the Human Race could be four times that numerous. Or more. So even the demographic aspects of historiography have become impossible; data are out of date when we receive them and always incomplete — yet so numerous and so varied in reliability that several hundred humans/computers on my staff keep busy trying to analyze, collate, interpolate and extrapolate, and to weigh them against other data before incorporating them into the records. We attempt to maintain standards of 95 percent in probability of corrected data, 85 percent in pessimistic reliability; our achievement is closer to 89 per cent and 81 percent — and getting worse. Pioneers care little about sending records to the home office; they are busy staying alive, making babies, and killing off anything in their way. A colony is usually into its fourth generation before any data reach this office. (Nor can it be otherwise. A colonist too interested in statistics becomes a statistic himself — as a corpse. I intend to migrate; once I have done so, I won't care whether this office keeps track of me or not. I have stuck to this essentially useless work for almost a century partly through inducements and partly through genetic disposition — I am a direct-and-reinforced descendant of Andrew Jackson Slipstick Libby himself. But I am descended also from the Senior and have — I think — some of his restless nature. I want to follow the wild geese and see what is happening out there — get married again; leave a dozen descendants on a fresh uncrowded planet, then — possibly — move on. Once I have the Senior's memoirs collated, the Trustees can, in the Senior's ancient idiom, take this job and shove it.) What sort of man is our Senior, my ancestor and probably yours, and certainly the oldest living human being, the only man who has taken part in the entire pageant of the crisis of the Human Race and its surmounting of crisis through Diaspora? For surmount it we have. Our race could now lose fifty planets, close ranks, and move on. Our gallant women could replace the casualties in a single generation. Not that it appears likely that this will happen; thus far we have encountered notone race as mean, as nasty, as deadly as our own. A conservative extrapolation indicates that we will reach in numbers that preposterous figure given earlier in a few more generations — and move on out of this Galaxy into others before we finish settling this one. Indeed, reports from farther out indicate that Human intergalactic colony ships are already headed out into the Endless Deeps. These reports are not verified — but the most virile colonies are always a long way from the most populous centers. One may hope. At best, history is hard to grasp; at worst, it is a lifeless collection of questionable records. It is most alive through the words of eyewitnesses. . .and we have but one witness whose life spans the twenty-three centuries of crisis and Diaspora. The next oldest human being whose age this office has been able to verify is only a little over a thousand years old. Probability theory makes it possible that there is somewhere a person half again that age — but it is both mathematically and historically certain that there is no other human alive today who was born in the twentieth century.* (* When the Howard Families seized the Starship New Frontiers only a few were more than a century and a quarter old; all of that few — save the Senior — are dead, at times and places on record. (I except the strange and possibly mythical case of life-in-death of Elder Mary Sperling.) Despite genetic advantage and access to the longevity therapies known collectively as "the immortality option," the last died in 3003 Gregorian. By the records it would seem that most of them died through refusing further rejuvenation — that being still the second commonest cause of death today. JF.45 th ) Some may question whether this "Senior" is the member of the Howard Families born in 1912 and also the "Lazarus Long" who led the Families in their escape from Old Home in 2136, etc. — pointing out that all the ancient methods of identification (fingerprints, retinal patterns, etc.) can now be beaten. True, but those methods were adequate for their time and the Howard Families Foundation had special reason to use them with care; the "Woodrow Wilson Smith" whose birth was registered with the Foundation in 1912 is certainly the "Lazarus Long" of2136 and 2210. Before those tests ceased to be reliable, they were supplemented by modern unbeatable tests based first on clone transplants and, more lately, on absolute identification of genetic patterns. (It is interesting to note that an impostor showed up about three centuries ago, here on Secundus, and was given a new heart from a cloned pseudobody of the Senior. It killed him.) The Senior whose words are quoted herein has a genetic pattern identical with that of a bit of muscle tissue removed from "Lazarus Long" by Dr. Gordon Hardy in the Starship NewFrontiers about 2145, and cultured by him for longevity research. Q.E.D But what sort of man is he? You must judge for yourself. In condensing this memoir to manageable length I have omitted many verified historical incidents (the raw data are available to scholars at the Archives) — but I have left in lies and unlikely stories on the assumption that the lies a man tells tell more truth about him — when analyzed — than does "truth." It is clear that this man is, by standards usual in civilized societies, a barbarian and a rogue. But it is not for children to judge their parents. The qualities that make him what he is are precisely those needed to stay alive in a jungle — or on a raw frontier. Do not forget your debt to him both genetic and historic. To understand our historic debt to him it is necessary to review some ancient history — part tradition or myth, and part fact as firmly established as the assassination of Julius Caesar. The Howard Families Foundation was established by the will of Ira Howard, who died in 1873. His will instructed the trustees of the foundation to use his money to "prolong human life." This is fact. Tradition says that he willed this in anger at his own fate, for he found himself dying of old age in his forties — dead at forty-eight, a bachelor without progeny. So none of us carries his genes; his immortality lies only in a name, and in an idea — that death could be thwarted. At that time death at forty-eight was not unusual. Believe it or not, in those days the average age at death was about thirty-five! But not from senility. Disease, starvation, accident, murder, war, childbirth, and other violences cut down most humans long before senility set in. But a human who passed all these hurdles still could expect death from old age sometime between seventy-five and one hundred. Very few reached one hundred; nevertheless every population group had its tiny minority of "centenarians." There is a legend about "Old Toni Parr" who is supposed to have died in 1 635 aged one hundred and fifty-two years. Whether or not the legend is true, probability analysis of demographic data of that era shows that some individuals must have lived a century and a half. But they were few indeed. The Foundation started its work as a prescientific breeding experiment, as nothing was then known of genetics: Adults of long-lived stock were encouraged to mate with others like them, money being the inducement. Unsurprisingly the inducement worked. Equally unsurprisingly this experiment worked, as it was an empirical method used by stockbreeders for centuries before the science of genetics came into being: Breed to reinforce one characteristic, then eliminate the culls. The Families' Archives do not show how the earliest culls were eliminated; they simply show that some were eliminated from the Families — root and branch, all descendants — forthe unforgivable sin of dying of old age too young. By the Crisis of 2136 all members of the Howard Families had life expectancies in excess of one hundred and fifty years, and some had exceeded that age. The cause of that crisis seems unbelievable — yet all records both from inside and from outside the Families agree on it. The Howard Families were in extreme danger from all other humans simply because they lived so "long." Why this was true is a matter for group psychologists, not for a record-keeper. But it was true. They were seized and concentrated in a prison camp, and were about to be tortured to death in an attempt to wrest from them their "secret" of "eternal youth." Fact — not myth. Here the Senior comes into the story. Through audacity, a talent for lying convincingly, and what would seem to most people today a childish delight in adventure and intrigue for its own sake, the Senior brought off the greatest jailbreak of all time, stealing a primitive starship and escaping right out of the Solar System with all of the Howard Families (then numbering about 100,000 men, women, and children). If this seems impossible — so many people and just one ship — remember that the first starships were enormously bigger than the ones we now use. Theywere self-sustaining artificial planetoids intended to remain in space for many years at speeds below that of light; they had to be huge. The Senior was not the only hero of that Exodus. But in all the varied and sometimes conflicting accounts that have come down to us, he was always the driving force. He was our Moses who led his people out of bondage. He brought them home again three-quarters of a century later (2210) — but not into bondage. Forthat date, Year One of the Standard Galactic calendar, marks the opening of the Great Diaspora... caused by extreme population pressure on Old Home Terra, and made possible by two new factors: the L i b by-S heffi e Id Para-Drive as it was known then (not a "drive" in any true sense, but a means of manipulating n-dimensional spaces), and the first (and simplest) of effective longevity techniques: new blood grown in vitro. The Howard Families caused this to happen simply by escaping. The short-lived humans back on Terra, still convinced that the long-lived families possessed a "secret," set about trying to find it by wide and systematic research, and, as always, research paid off serendipitously, not with the nonexistent "secret" but with something almost as good: a therapy, and eventually a sheaf of therapies, for postponing old age, and forextending vigor, virility, and fertility. The Great Diaspora was then both necessary and possible. The Senior's great talent (aside from his ability to lie extemporaneously and convincingly) seems always to have been a rare gift for extrapolating the possibilities of any situation — then twisting it to suit his own purposes. (He calls it: "You have to have a feeling for what makes the frog jump." Psychometrists who have studied him say that he has an extremely high psi talent expressed as "forerunners" and "luck" — but what the Senior has to say about them is less polite. As a record-keeper, I refrain from opinion.) The Senior saw at once that this benison of extended youth, although promised to everyone, would in fact be limited to the powerful and their nepots. The billions of helots could not be allowed to live beyond their normal pan; there was no room for them — unless they migrated to the stars, in which case there would be room for each human to live as long as he could manage. How the Senior exploited this is not always clear; he seems to have used several names and many fronts. His key corporations wound up in the hands of this Foundation, then were liquidated to move the Foundation and the Howard Families to Secundus — at his behest, he having saved "the best real estate" for his relatives and descendants. Sixty-eight percent of those then living accepted the challenge of new frontiers. Our genetic debt to him is both indirect and direct. The indirect debt lies in the fact that migration is a sorting device, a forced Darwinian selection, under which superior stock goes to the stars while culls stay home and die. This is true even for those forcibly transported (as in the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth centuries), save that the sorting then takes place on the new planet. In a raw frontier weaklings and misfits die; strong stock survives. Even those who migrate voluntarily still go through this second drastic special selection. The Howard Families have been culled in this fashion at least three times. Our genetic "debt" to the Senior is even easier to prove. Part of it needs only simple arithmetic. If you live anywhere but on Old Home Terra — and you almost certainly do if you read this, in view of the present miserable state of "The Fair Green Hills of Earth" — and can claim even one member of the Howard Families among your ancestors — and most of you can — then you are most probably descended from the Senior. By the official Families' genealogies this probability is 87.3 percent. N£>u are descended from many other twentieth century members of the Howard Families, too, if you are descended from any of them, but I speak here only of Woodrow Wilson Smith, the Senior. By the Crisis Year 2136 nearly one-tenth of the youngest generation of the Howard Families were descended from the Senior "legitimately" — by which I mean that each linking birth was so recorded in the Families' records and ancestry confirmed by such tests as were available at the time. (Even blood typing was not known when the breeding experiment started, but the culling process made it strongly to a female's advantage not to stray, at least not outside the Families.) By now the cumulative probability is, as I have said, 87.3 percent if you have any Howard ancestor — but if you have a Howard ancestor from a recent generation, your probability climbs toward an effective 1 00 percent. But, as a statistician, I have reason to believe (backed by computer analyses of blood types, hair types, eye color, tooth count, enzyme types, and other characteristics responsive to genetic analysis) — strong reason to believe that the Senior has many descendants not recorded in genealogies, both inside and outside the Howard Families. To put it mildly, he is a shameless old goat whose seed is scattered all through this part of our Galaxy. Take the years of the Exodus, after he stole the NewFrontiers. He was not married even once during those years, and ship's records and legends based on memoirs of that time suggest that he was, in an early idiom, a "woman hater," a misogynist. Perhaps. Biostatistical records (rather than genealogies), when analyzed, suggest that he was not that unapproachable. The computer that analyzed it offered to bet me even money on more than one hundred offspring fathered by him during those years. (I refused the bet; that computer beats me at chess even though I insist on a one-rook advantage.) I do not find this surprising, in view of the almost pathological emphasis placed on longevity among the Families at that time. The oldest male, if still virile — and he certainty was — would have been subjected to endless temptation, endless opportunity, by females anxious to have offspring of his demonstrated superiority — "superiority" by the only criterion the Howard Families respected. We can assume that marital status would not matter much; all Howard Families marriages were marriages of convenience — Ira Howard's will insured that — and they were rarely for life. The only surprising aspect is that so few fertile females managed to trip him when unquestionably so many thousands were willing. But he was always fast on his feet. As may be — If today I see a man with sandy red hair, a big nose, an easy disarming grin, and a slightly feral look in his gray-green eyes, I always wonder how recently the Senior has passed through that part of the Galaxy. If such a stranger comes close to me, I put my hand on my purse: If he speaks to me, I resolve not to make wagers or promises. But how did the Senior, himself only a third-generation member of Ira Howard's breeding experiment, manage to live and stay young his first three hundred years without artificial rejuvenation? A mutation, of course — which simply says that we don't know. But in the course of his several rejuvenations we have learned a little about his physical makeup. He has an unusually large heart that beats very slowly. He has only twenty-eight teeth, no caries, and seems to be immune to infection. He has never had surgery other than for wounds or for rejuvenation procedures. His reflexes are extremely fast — but appear always to be reasoned, so one may question the correctness of the term "reflex." His eyes have never needed correction either for distance or close work; his hearing range is abnormally high, abnormally low, and is unusually acute throughout his range. His color vision includes indigo. He was born without prepuce, without vermiform appendix — and apparently without a conscience. I am pleased that he is my ancestor. Justin Foote the 45th Chief Archivist, Howard Foundation PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION In this abridged popular edition the technical appendix has been published separately in order to make room for an account of the Senior's actions after he left Secundus until his disappearance. An apocryphal and obviously impossible tale of the last events in his life has been included at the insistence of the editor of the original memoir, but it cannot be taken seriously. Carolyn Briggs Chief Archivist Note: My lovely and learned successor in office does not know what she is talking about. With the Senior, the most fantastic is always the most probable. Justin Foote the 45th Chief Archivist Emeritus PRELUDE I As the doorofthe suite dilated, the man seated staring glumly out the window looked around. "Who the hell are you?" "I am Ira Weatheral of the Johnson Family, Ancestor, Chairman Pro Tern of the Families." "Took you long enough. Don't call me 'Ancestor. 1 And why just the Chairman Pro Tern?" the man in the chair growled. "Is the Chairman too damn busy to see me? Don't I rate even that?" He made no move to stand, nor did he invite his visitor to sit down. "\bur pardon, Sire. I am chief executive for the Families. But it has been customary for some time now — several centuries — for the chief executive to hold the title. 'Chairman Pro Tern' — against the possibility that you might show up and take the gavel." "Eh? Ridiculous. I haven't presided at a meeting of the Trustees for a thousand years. And 'Sire' is as bad as 'Ancestor' — call me by name. It's been two days since I sent for you. Did you come by the scenic route? Or has the rule that entitles me to the ear of the Chairman been revoked?" "I am not aware of that rule, Senior; it was probably long before my time — but it is my honor and duty — and pleasure — to wait on you at anytime. I will be pleased and honored to call you by name if you will tell me what your name is now. As for the delay — thirty-seven hours since I received your summons — I have spent it studying Ancient English, as I was told that you were not answering to any other language." The Senior looked slightly sheepish. "It's true I'm not handy with the jabber they speak here — my memory has been playing tricks on me lately. I guess I've been sulky about answering even when I understood. Names — I forget what name I checked in by when I grounded here. Mmm, 'Woodrow Wilson Smith' was my boyhood name. Never used it much. I suppose 'Lazarus Long 1 is the name I've used oftenest — call me 'Lazarus.'" "Thank you, Lazarus." "For what? Don't be so damned formal. \bu're not a kid, or you wouldn't be Chairman — how old are you? Did you really take the trouble to learn my milk language just to call on me? And in less than two days? Was that from scratch? It takes me at least a week to tack on a new language, another week to smooth out accent." "I am three hundred and seventy-two standard years old, Lazarus — just under four hundred Earth years. I learned Classic English when I took this job — but as a dead language, to enable me to read old records of the Families in the original. What I did since your summons was to learn to speak and understand it in North American twentieth-century idiom — your 'milk language' as you said — as that is what the linguistic analyzer computed that you were speaking." "Pretty smart machine. Maybe I am speaking it the way I did as a youngster; they claim that's the one language a brain never forgets. Then I must be talking in a Cornbelt rasp like a rusty saw whereas you're speaking a sort of Texas drawl with an Oxford British overlay. Odd. I suppose the machine picks the version out of its permanents closest to the sample fed into it." "I believe so, Lazarus, although the techniques involved are not my field. Do you have trouble understanding my accent?’ "Oh, none at all. Your accent is okay; it's closer to educated General American of that time than is the accent I learned as a kid. But I can follow anything from Bluegum to Yorkshire; accent is no problem. It was mighty kind of you to bother. Warming." "My pleasure. I have a talent for languages; it was not much trouble. I try to be able to speak to each of the Trustees in his native language; I'm used to swotting up a new one quickly." "So? Nonetheless a courteous thing to do — I've felt like an animal in a zoo with no one to talk to. Those dummies" — Lazarus inclined his head at two rejuvenation technicians, dressed in isolation gear and one-way helmets, and waiting as far from the conversation as the room permitted — "don't know English; I can't talk with them. Oh, the taller one understands a little but not enough for gossip." Lazarus whistled, pointed at the taller. "Hey, you! A chair for the Chairman — chop chop!" His gestures made his meaning clear. The taller technician touched the controls of a chair nearby; it rolled away, wheeled around, and stopped at a comfortable tete-a-tete distance from Lazarus. Ira Weatheral said thank you-to Lazarus, not to the tech-sat down, then sighed as the chair felt him out and cuddled him. Lazarus said, "Comfortable?" "Quite." "Anything to eat or drink? Or smoke? You may have to interpret for me." "Nothing, thank you. But may I order for you?" "Not now. They keep me stuffed like a goose — once they force-fed me, damn them. Since we're comfortable, let's get on with the powwow." He suddenly roared, "WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING IN THIS JAIL?" Weatheral answered quietly, "Not 'jail,' Lazarus. The VIP suite of the Howard Rejuvenation Clinic. New Rome." "'Jail,' I said. All it lacks is cockroaches. This window — you couldn't break it with a crowbar. That door — it opens to any voice except mine. If I go to the john, one of those dummies is at my elbow. Apparently afraid I'll drown myself in the pot. Hell, I don't even know whether that nurse is a man or a woman — and don't like it either way. I don't need somebody to hold my hand while I go pee-pee! I resent it." "I'll see what can be worked out, Lazarus. But the technicians are understandably jumpy. A person can get hurt quite easily in any bathroom — and they all know that, if you are hurt, no matter by what mischance, the technician in charge at the time will suffer cruel and unusual punishment. They are volunteers and are drawing high bonuses. But they're jumpy." "So I figured out. 'Jail.' If this is a rejuvenation suite WHERE'S MYSUICIDE SWITCH?" "Lazarus — 'Death is every man's privilege.'" "That's what I said! That switch belongs right there; you can see where it has been dismounted. So I'm in jail without trial, with my most basic right taken from me. Why ? I'm furious, man. Do you realize what danger you are in? Never tease an old dog; he might have one bite left. Old as I am, I could break your arms before those dummies could reach us." "\bu are welcome to break my arms if it pleases you." "Huh?" Lazarus Long looked baffled. "No, it's not worth the sweat. They would have you patched up good as new in thirty minutes." He suddenly grinned. "But I could snap your neck, then crush your skull, about as fast. That's one injury beyond the power of rejuvenators." Weatheral did not stir, did not tense. "I feel sure you could," he said quietly. "But I do not think that you would kill one of your descendants without giving him a chance to parley for his life. Nt>u are my remote grandfather, sir, by seven different tracks." Lazarus chewed his lip and looked unhappy. "Son, I have so many descendants that consanguinity doesn't matter. But you're essentially right. In all my life I have never killed a man unnecessarily. I think." Then he grinned. "But if I don't get my suicide switch back, I could make an exception in your case." "Lazarus, if you wish, I will have that switch remounted at once. But — 'Ten Words'?" "Uh — " Lazarus looked ungracious. "Okay. 'Ten Words.' Not eleven." Weatheral hesitated a split second, then counted on his fingers: "I learned your language to explain why we need you." "Ten bythe Rule," Lazarus admitted. "But meaning that you need fifty. Or five hundred. Or five thousand." "Or none," Weatheral amended. "\bu can have your switch without giving me any chance to explain. I promised." "Humph!" said Lazarus. "Ira, you old scoundrel, you have me convinced that you really are my kin. Nt>u figured that I would not suicide without hearing what you have on your mind — once I knew you had bothered to learn a dead language just to make palaver. All right, talk. You can start by telling me what I'm doing here. I know — I know— that I didn't apply for rejuvenation. But I woke up here with the job already half over. So I screamed for the Chairman. Okay, why am I here?" "May we start further back? \bu tell me what you were doing in a flophouse in the worst part of Old Town." "What was I doing ? 1 was dying. Quietly and decently, like a worn-out horse. That is, I was, until your busybodies grabbed me. Can you think of a better place than a flophouse for a man who doesn't want to be disturbed while he's busy with it? If his cot is paid for in advance, they leave a man be. Oh, they stole what little I had, even my shoes. But I expected that — would have done the same myself under the same circumstances. And the sort of people who live in flophouses are almost always kind to those worse off than they are — any of 'em will fetch a drink of water to a sick man. That was the most I wanted — that and to be left alone to close out my account in my own way. Until your busies showed up. Tell me, bow did they find me?' "How we found you is not the surprising part, Lazarus, but the fact that SecFor — the cops? — Yes, 'cops' — that my cops took so long to identify you, then find you, and pick you up. A section chief lost his job over that. I don't tolerate inefficiency." "So you busted him. "four business. But why? I reached Secundus from Out-Far, and I didn't think I had left any back trail. Different everything since the last time I was in touch with the Families... as I bought my last rejuvenation on Supreme. Are the Families swapping data with Supreme these days?" "Heavens, no, Lazarus, we won't even give them a polite word. There is a strong minority among the Trustees who favor rubbing out Supreme, instead of simply maintaining embargo." "Well... if a nova bomb hit Supreme, I wouldn't mourn more than thirty seconds. But I did have a reason for having the job done there, even though I had to pay high for forced cloning. But that's another story. Son, how did you pick me up?" "Sir, for the past seventy years there has been a general order out to try to find you, not just here but on every planet where the Families maintain offices. As to how — do you recall a forced inoculation for Reiber's fever at Immigration?" "Yes. I was annoyed, but it didn't seem worthwhile to make a fuss; I knew I was headed for that flophouse. Ira, I've known that I was dying for quite some time. That was okay; I was ready for it. But I didn't want to do it alone, out in space. Wanted human voices around me, and body odors. Childish of me. But I was pretty far gone by the time I grounded." "Lazarus, there is no such thing as Reiber's fever. When a man grounds on Secundus and all routine identifications show null, 'Reiber's fever' or some other nonexistent plague is used as an excuse to get a little tissue from him while injecting him with sterile neutral saline. Nfc>u should never have been allowed to leave the skyport until your genetic pattern was identified." "So? What do you do when ten thousand immigrants arrive in one ship?" "Herd them into detention barracks until we've checked them out. But that doesn't happen often today with Old Home Terra in the sorry state it's in. But you, Lazarus, arriving alone in a private yacht worth fifteen to twenty million crowns — " "Make that 'thirty.'" " — worth thirty million crowns. How many men in the Galaxy can do that? Of those who can afford it, how many would choose to travel alone? The pattern should have set alarm bells ringing in the minds of all of them. Instead they took your tissue and accepted your statement that you would be staying at the Romulus Hilton and let you go — and no doubt you had another identity before dark." "No doubt at all," Lazarus agreed. "But your cops have run up the price on a good phony set of ID's. If I hadn’t been too tired to bother, I would have forged my own. Safer. Was that how I was caught? Did you squeeze it out of the paper merchant?" "No, we never found him. By the way, you might let me know who he is, so that — " "And I might not,” Lazarus said sharply. "Not ratting on him was implicit in the bargain. It's nothing to me how many of your rules he breaks. And — who knows? — I might need him again. Certainly someone will need his services, somebody just as anxious to avoid your busies as I was. Ira, no doubt you mean well but I don't like setups where IDs are necessary. I told myself centuries back to stay away from places crowded enough to require them, and mostly I've followed that rule. Should have followed it this time. But I didn't expect to need any identification very long. Confoundit, two more days and I would have been dead. I think. How did you catch me?" "The hard way. Once I knew you were on planet I stirred things up; that section chief wasn't the only unhappy one. But you disappeared in so simple a fashion that you baffled the entire force. My security chief expressed the opinion that you had been killed and your body disposed of. I told him if that were the case, he had better start thinking about offplanet migration." "Make it march! I want to know how I goofed." "I would not say that you goofed. Lazarus, since you managed to stay hidden with every cop and stoolie on this globe looking for you. But I felt certain that you had not been killed. Oh, we do have murders on Secundus, especially here in New Rome. But most are the commonplace husband-wife sort: We don't have many for gain since I instituted a policy of making the punishment fit the crime and holding executions in- the Colosseum. In any case I felt certain that a man who had survived more than two millennia would not let himself be killed in some dark alley. "So I assumed that you were alive, then asked myself, 'If I were Lazarus Long, how would I go about hiding?' I went into deep meditation and thought about it. Then I tried to retrace your steps, so far as we knew them. By the way — " The Chairman Pro Tern threw back his shoulder cloak, took out a large sealed envelope, handed it to Lazarus. "Here is the item you left in a lockbox at Harriman Trust." Lazarus accepted it. "It's been opened." "By me. Prematurely, I admit — but you addressed it to me. I have read it but no one else has. And now I will forget it. Except to say this: I am unsurprised that you left your wealth to the Families but I was touched that you assigned your yacht to the personal use of the Chairman. That's a sweet craft, Lazarus; I lust after it a bit. But not so much that I am anxious to inherit so quickly. But I undertook to explain why we need you — and let myself get sidetracked.? 1 "I'm in no rush, Ira. Are you?" "Me? Sir; I have no duties more important than talking with the Senior. Besides, my staff runs this planet more efficiently if I don't supervise them too closely." Lazarus nodded agreement. "That was always my system the times I let myself get involved. Accept the whole load, then shove the work off on other people as fast as I could pick 'em. Having any trouble with democrats these days?" "'Democrats'? Oh-you must mean 'egalitarians.' I thought at first you meant the Church of the Holy Democrat.We leave that church alone; they don't meddle. There is an equalitarian movement every few years, certainly, under various names. The Freedom Party, the League of the Oppressed — names don't matter as they all want to turn the rascals out, starting with me; and put their own rascals in. We never bother them; we simply infiltrate, then some night we round up the ringleaders and their families, and by daylight they are headed out as involuntary migrants. Transportees. 'Living on Secundus is a privilege, not a right."' "\bu're quoting me." "Of course. Ntrur exact words from the contract under which you deeded Secundus to the Foundation. That there was to be no government on this planet other than such rules as the current chairman found necessary to maintain order. We've stuck to our agreement with you, Senior; I am sole boss until the Trustees see fit to replace me." "That's what I intended," Lazarus agreed. "But Son, it's your pidgin and I'll never touch that gavel again — but I have doubts about the wisdom of getting rid of troublemakers. Every loaf needs yeast. A society that gets rid of all its troublemakers goes downhill. Sheep. Pyramid builders at best, decadent savages at worst. \t>u may be eliminating your creative one-tenth of one percent. Your yeast." "I'm afraid we are, Senior, and that's one reason why we need you — " "I said I won't touch that gavel!" "Will you hear me out, sir? You won't be asked to, even though it is yours by ancient custom if you care to pick it up. But I could use advice — " "I don't give advice; people never take it." "Sorry. Perhaps just a chance to talk over my problems with a person more experienced than I am. About these troublemakers — We haven't eliminated them in the old sense; they're still alive, or most of them. Ostracizing a man to another planet is more satisfactory than killing him for the technical crime of treason; it gets rid of him without making his neighbors too indignant. Nor have we wasted him — them — as we are using them to conduct an experiment: All transportees are shipped to the same planet, Felicity. Do you happen to know it?" "Not by that name." "I think you would have stumbled on it only by accident, sir; we have kept it out of public records in order to use it as a Botany Bay. It is not as good a planet as the name suggests, but it is a good one, roughly equivalent to Old Home Terra — Earth, I should say — before it was ruined, or much like Secundus when we settled here. It's rough enough to test a man and eliminate weaklings, gentle enough to let a man raise a family if he has the guts to dig in and sweat." "Sounds like a good place; perhaps you should have hung onto it. Natives?" "The proto-dominant race are quite fierce savages... if any are still alive. We don't know, we don't even maintain a liaison office there. This native race is neither intelligent enough to be civilized nor tractable enough to be enslaved. Perhaps they would have evolved and made it on their own, but they had the misfortune to encounter H. sapiens before they were ready for him. But that is not the experiment; the transportees are certain to win out over that competition, we do not send them empty-handed. But, Lazarus, these people believe that they can create ideal government by maioritv rule." Lazarus snorted. "Perhaps they can, sir," Weatheral persisted. "I don't know that they cannot. That is the experiment." "Son, are you a fool? Oh, you can't be, the Trustees wouldn't keep you in office. But — How old did you say you are?" Weatheral answered quietly, "I am nineteen centuries your junior, sir; I will not dispute your opinion on anything. But I do not know through my own experience that this experiment will not work; I have never seen a government of the democratic type, even in the numerous times I have been off planet. I've simply read about them. From what I have read not one has ever been formed from a population all of whom believed in the democratic theory. So I don't know." "Hmm." Lazarus looked frustrated. "Ira, I was about to shove my own experience with such governments down your throat. But you're right, this is a brand new situation — and we don't know. Oh, I have strong opinions, but a thousand reasoned opinions are never equal to one case of diving in and finding out. Galileo proved that and it may be the only certainty we have. Mmm...all the so-called democracies I've ever seen or heard of were either forced on the majority from above or grew up slowly from the plebs discovering that they could vote themselves bread-and-circuses — for a while, until the system broke down. I'm sorry I won't see the outcome of your experiment. I suspect it will be the harshest tyranny imaginable; majority rule gives the ruthless strong man plenty of elbow room to oppress his fellows. But I don't know. What's your opinion?" "The computers say — " "Never mind computers. Ira, the most sophisticated machine the human mind can build has in it the limitations of the human mind. Anyone who thinks otherwise does not understand the Second Law of Thermodynamics. I asked for your opinion." "Sir, I refuse to form an opinion; I lack sufficient data." "Hrrumph: fbu're getting old, Son. To get anywhere, or even to live a long time, a man has to guess, and guess right, over and over again, without enough data for a logical answer. Nt>u were telling me how you found me." "Yes, sir. That document, your will, made it clear that you expected to die soon. Then" — Weatheral paused and smiled wryly — "I had to 'guess right without enough data.' It took us two days to find the shop where you bought clothes to lower your apparent status — and to conform to local styles, I think. I suspect that you bought your false ID's right after that." He paused; Lazarus made no comment;. Weatheral continued: "Another half day to find the shop where you lowered your apparent status much farther, close to bottom — too far perhaps, as the shopkeeper remembered you, both because you paid cash and because you were buying secondhand clothes that were not as good even when new as the ones you were wearing. Oh, he pretended to accept your story about a 'costume party' and kept his mouth shut; his shop is a fence for stolen goods." "Of course," agreed Lazarus. "I made sure he was on the crook before I bought from him. But you said he stayed zipped?" "Until we stimulated his memory. A fence is in a difficult position, Lazarus; he has to have a permanent address. This can sometimes force him to be honest." "Oh, I wasn't blaming dear old Uncle. The fault was mine; I let myself be conspicuous. I was tired, Ira, and feeling my years and let it rush me into doing a sloppy job. Even a hundred years back I would have done a more artistic job. I've always known that it is more difficult to lower your status convincingly than to raise it." "I don't think you need feel ashamed of the job as a work of art, Senior; you had us baffled for almost three months." "Son, the world doesn't pay off on a 'good try.' Go ahead" "Brute force then, Lazarus: That shop is in the worst part of the city; we put a cordon around the area and saturated it, thousands of men. But not for long; you were in the third fleabag we checked. I spotted you myself, I was with one of the raiding parties. Then your genetic pattern confirmed your identity." Ira Weatheral smiled slightly. "But we were pouring new blood into you before the genetic analyzer reported your identity; you were in bad shape, sir." "I was like hell in bad shape; I was simply dying — and minding my own business, a practice you could emulate. Ira, do you realize what a dirty trick you have done me? A man ought not to have to die twice and I was past the bad part and ready for the finale as easy as falling asleep. Then you butted in. I've never heard of rejuvenation being forced on anyone. If I had suspected that you had changed the rules, I would never have come near this planet. Now I have to go through it again. Either with the suicide switch — and suicide is an idea I've always despised — or the natural way. Which could now take a long time. Is my old blood still around? Stored?" "I will inquire of the Clinic's Director, sir." "Humph. That's not an answer, so don't bother to lie. "Vbu've put me in a dilemma, Ira. Even though I haven't had the full treatment, I feel better than I've felt for forty years or more-which means either that I must again wait it out for many weary years — or use that switch when my body isn't saying, 'Time to adjourn.' \bu meddling scoundrel, by what authority — no, you've got the authority. By what ethical principle did you interfere with my death?" "Because we needed you, sir." "That's not an ethical reason, just a pragmatic one. The need was not mutual." "Senior, I have studied your life as thoroughly as the records permit. It seems to me that you often acted pragmatically." Lazarus grinned. "That's my boy! I was wondering if you would have the gall to try to twist it into some high moral principle, like a damned preacher. I don't trust a man who talks about ethics when he's picking my pocket. But if he's acting in his own self-interest and says so, I have usually been able to work out some way to do business with, him." "Lazarus, if you will let us complete your rejuvenation, you'll feel like living again. I think you know that; you've been through it before." "To what end, sir? When I've had more than two thousand years of trying everything? When I've seen so many planets that they blur in my mind? When I've had so many wives I can't remember their names? 'We pray for one last landing on the Globe that gave us birth — 1 1 can't even do that; the lovely green planet I was born on has aged even more than I have; to return to it would be a time for tears, not a happy homecoming. No, Son, despite all rejuvenation there comes a time when the only reasonable thing to do is turn out the lights and go to sleep — and you, damn you, you took It away from me." "I’m sorry — no, I'm not sorry. But I do ask your pardon." "Well you might get it. But not now. What was this aching reason you needed me? Nt>u mentioned some problem other than the troublemakers you transport." "Yes, although it is not one that would have caused me to interfere with your right to die your own way; I can handle it, one way or another. I think Secundus is becoming both too crowded and too civilized — " "I'm sure of it, Ira." "Therefore I think the Families should move again." "I agree even though I am not interested. As a thumb rule, one can say that any time a planet starts developing cities of more than one million people, it is approaching critical mass. In a century or two it won't be fit to live on. Do you have a planet in mind? Do you think you can get the Trustees to go along? And will the Families follow the Trustees?" "Yes to the first, maybe to the second, probably No to the third. I have a planet in mind as 'Tertius,' one as good or better than Secundus. I think many of the Trustees would agree with my reasoning but I'm not sure of the overwhelming support such a move would need — Secundus is too comfortable for the danger to seem imminent to most people. As for the Families themselves — no, I don't think we could persuade most of them to uproot and move but even a few hundred thousand would suffice. Gideon's Band — you follow me?" "I'm way ahead of you. Migration always involves selection and improvement. Elementary. If they'll do it. If. Ira, I had a hell of a time selling the idea to the Families when we moved here back in the twenty-third century. Could not have sold it at all if Earth had not become a dreary place. Good luck; you'll need it." "Lazarus, I don't expect to succeed. I will try. But if I fail, I'll resign and migrate anyhow. To Tertius if I can organize a party large enough for a viable colony. To some planet colonized but very thinly settled if not." "Do you mean that, Ira? Or, when the time comes, will you kid yourself that it is really your duty to hang on? If a man has the temperament for power — and you have or you wouldn't be where you are — he finds it hard to abdicate." "I mean it, Lazarus. Oh, I like to run things; I know it. I hope to lead the Families on their third Exodus. But I don't expect to. However, I think my chances of putting together a viable colony — of young people, not over a hundred years old, two hundred at most — without the aid of the Foundation, are fairly good. But if I fail in that, too" — he shrugged — "migration will be the only worthwhile course open to me; Secundus will have nothing more to offer." Weatheral added, "Perhaps I feel as you do, sir, in a minor way. I have no wish to be Chairman Pro Tern all my days. I've had almost a century of it; that's enough. If I can't put this over." Lazarus was thoughtfully silent; Weatheral waited. "Ira, install that suicide switch for me. But tomorrow. Not today." "Yes, sir." "Don't you want to know why?" Lazarus picked up the large envelope, his will. "If you convince me that you are going to migrate, come hell or high water and no matter what the Trustees do, I want to rewrite this. My investments and cash accounts here and there — if somebody hasn't stolen them while my back was turned — add up to a nice piece of change. Possibly enough to make the difference between success and failure in mounting a migration. If the Trustees won't back it with Foundation funds. And they won't." Weatheral said nothing. Lazarus glared at him. "Didn't your mother teach you to say 'Thank you'?" "For what, Lazarus? Forgiving me something after you're dead and no longer need it? If you do this, it will be to tickle your vanity — not to please me." Lazarus grinned. "Hell, yes. I ought to stick in a condition that you name the planet 'Lazarus.' But I would have no way to enforce it. Okay, we understand each other. And I think — Do you respect good machinery?" "Eh? Nfes. As much as I despise machinery that doesn't do what it is putatively designed to do." "We still understand each other. I think I'll leave the 'Dora'-that's my yacht-to you personally rather than to the Families' chairman... //you lead a migration." "Uh. . .you tempt me to thank you." "Don't. Just be good to her. She's a sweet craft, she's never known anything but kindness. She'll make a fine flagship for you. With simple reoutfitting — specs for it in her computer — she'll house a staff of twenty or thirty. And you can ground and reconnoiter in her, then lift off again — which your transports won't be able to do, most likely." "Lazarus... I don't want to inherit either money or a yacht from you. Let them finish your rejuvenation — and come with us, man! I'll step aside and you can boss. Or you can have no duties at all. But come!" Lazarus smiled bleakly and shook his head. "I've been on six such colonizing ventures to virgin planets, not counting Secundus. All to planets I discovered. Gave it up centuries back. Anything gets boring in time. Do you think Solomon serviced all his thousand wives? If so, what sort of job did he do on the last one? — poor girl! Find me something new to do and I might never touch that suicide switch and still give you all I've got for your colony. It 'ud be a fair swap. . .as this halfway rejuvenation is most unsatisfactory; I don't feel well, yet I can't die. So I'm stuck between the suicide switch and giving in for the full treatment... the donkey that starved to death between two piles of hay. But it would have to be new, Ira, not something I've done over and over again. Like that old whore, I've climbed the same stairs too many times; my feet hurt." "I'll think about the problem, Lazarus. I'll give it hard and systematic research." "Seven to two you can't find anything I haven't done." "I'll make a real try. Ntiu'll lay off the suicide switch while I research it?" "No promises. Not once I get this will redrafted. Can you trust your chief legal eagle? May need some help ...because this will" — he tapped the envelope — "leaving everything to the Families would stand up on Secundus no matter how many flaws are in it. But if I leave it to a private party — you, I mean — some of my descendants — quite a passel — will scream 'undue influence' and try to break it. Ira, they'll keep it tied up in court until it's dribbled away in legal fees. Let's avoid that, eh?" "We can. I've made changes in the rules. On this planet a man can put his will through probate before his death, and if there are flaws, the court is required to help him rephrase it to accomplish his purposes. If he does it that way, no contest can be entertained by any court; it goes automatically into effect on his death. Of course if he changes his will, the new will must go through the same process — which makes changing his mind expensive. But by using preprobate, it does not take a lawyer for even the most complex will. And the lawyers can't touch it afterwards." Lazarus' eyes widened with pleasure. "Didn't you annoy a few lawyers?" "I've annoyed so many," Ira said dryly, "that every transport to Felicity has voluntary migrants in it — and so many lawyers have annoyed me, that some are involuntary ones." The Chairman Pro Tens looked sourly amused. "Once I said to my Chief Justice, 'Warren, I've bad to reverse too many of your decisions. \bu've been splitting hairs, misinterpreting the rules, and ignoring equity ever since you came into office. Go home; you're under house arrest until the 'Last Chance' lifts. You can have an escort during daylight hours to let you wind up your private affairs." Lazarus chuckled. "Shoulda hanged him. You know what he did, don't you? Set up shop again on Felicity and went into politics. If they didn't lynch him." "His problem and theirs, not mine. Lazarus, I never let a man be executed for being a fool — but if he's too obnoxious, I ship him out. There's no need to sweat over your new will if you want one. Just dictate it with any elaborations and explanations you see fit. Then we'll run it through a semantic analyzer to rephrase it into airtight legal language. Once it satisfies you, you can submit it to the High Court — which will come to you if you prefer — and the Court will validate it. Done that way it could then be overturned only by arbitrary act of a new Chairman Pro Tern. Which I consider most unlikely; the Trustees do not place such men in office." Weatheral added, "But I hope you will take plenty of time, Lazarus. I want a fair chance to search for something new, something that will restore your interest in life." "All right. But don't dally; I won't be put off with a Scheherazade gag. Have them send me a recorder — tomorrow morning, say." Weatheral seemed about to speak, did not. Lazarus looked at him sharply. " This conversation is being recorded?" "Yes, Lazarus. Sound and holography, everything that happens in this suite. But — your pardon, sir! — it goes only to my desk and does not become a permanent record until I have checked and okayed it. Nothing so far, that is." Lazarus shrugged. "Forget it. Ira, I learned centuries back that there is no privacy in any society crowded enough to need ID's. A law guaranteeing privacy simply insures that bugs — microphones and lenses and so forth — are that much harder to spot. I hadn't thought about it up till now because I take it for granted that., my privacy will be invaded anytime I visit such places — then I ignore it unless I'm up to something the local law won't like. In which case I use evasive tactics." "Lazarus, that record can be wiped. Its only purpose is to make me certain that the Senior is being properly taken care of — a responsibility I will not delegate." "I said, 'Forget it.' But I'm surprised at your naivete, a man in your position, in thinking that the record is piped only to your desk. I'll lay long odds, any amount you like, that it goes one, two, even three or more other places." "If so, Lazarus, and lean find it out, Felicity will have some new colonists — aftertheyVe spent some unpleasant hours in the Colosseum." "Ira, it doesn't matter. If any fool wants to watch an old, old man grunting on the pot or taking a bath, he's welcome. Nfciu yourself insured that it would happen by making a point of the record being secret, your eyes only. Security people always spy on their bosses; they can’t help it, it's a syndrome that goes with the job. Have you had dinner? I'd be pleased to have you stay if you have time." "I would be honored indeed to have dinner with the Senior." "Oh, knock it off, Bud; there's no virtue in being old, it just takes a long time. I'd like you to stay because I'm enjoying human companionship. Those two over there are no company; I'm not even sure they're human. Robots, maybe. Why do they wear those diving suits and shiny helmets. I like to see a man's face." "Lazarus, those are total isolation garments. For your protection, not theirs. Against infection." " Whaf? Ira, when a bug bites me, the bug dies. Even so, since they have to wear that, how is it that you come in wearing street clothes?' "Not quite, Lazarus. For my purpose I needed a social talk, fake to face. So the last two hours before I came in I spent undergoing a most careful physical examination, followed by scalp-to-toe sterilization of skin, hair, ears, nails, teeth, nose, throat-even a gas inhalation which I can't name but did not like — while my clothes were sterilized even more thoroughly. Even that envelope I fetched to you. This suite is sterile and kept so." "Ira, such precautions are silly. Unless my immunity has been intentionally lowered?" "No. Or let me say, 'I think not.' No reason for it as any transplant will of course be done from your own clone." "So it's unnecessary. If I didn't catch anything in that flophouse, why would I catch anything now? But I don't catch things. I worked as a physician during a plague — don't look surprised; medicine is just one of fifty-odd trades I've followed. Unknown plague on Ormuzd; everybody caught it, twenty-eight percent died. Save yours truly, who didn't ever have a sniffle. So tell those — No, you'll want to do it through the Director of the Clinic; bypassing your chain-of-command ruins morale-though why I should care about this organization's morale I don't know, seeing that I am an involuntary guest. Tell the Director that, if I must have nurses, I want them to dress like nurses. Or, better yet, like people. Ira, if you want cooperation out of me of any sort, you'll start by cooperating with me. Otherwise I'm going to take the joint apart with my bare hands." "I'll speak to the Director, Lazarus." "Good. Now let's have dinner. But a drink first — and if the Director doesn't think I should have one, tell him bluntly that he will have to go back to force-feeding and there is some question as to whose throat the tube will go down; I'm in no mood to be pushed around. Is there any real whisky on this planet? Wasn't the last time I was here." "Not that I would drink. But the local brandy I think well of." "Good. Brandy and bubbles for me if that is the best we can do, a brandy Manhattan if anyone knows what I mean by that." "I do, and like them-l learned something about ancient drinks when I studied your life." 'Pine. Then please orderfor us, drinks and dinner — and I'll listen and see how many words I can pick up. I think my memory is coining back a bit." Weatheral spoke to one of the technicians; Lazarus interrupted. "That should be one-third sweet vermouth, not one-half." "So? \t>u understood it?" "Mostly. Indo-European roots, with a simplified syntax and grammar; I'm beginning to recall it. Damn it, when a man has had to learn as many languages as I have, it's easy for one to slip away. But it's coming back." Service was so fast as to cause one to suspect that a crew was standing by ready to produce anything that the Senior or the Chairman Pro Tern asked for. Weatheral raised his glass. "Long life." "In a pig's eye," Lazarus growled and took a sip. He made a face. 'Whew! Panther sweat. But it does have alcohol in it." He took another. "Improves as your tongue gets numb. Okay, Ira, you've stalled long enough. What was your real reason for snatching me back from my well-earned rest? 1 "Lazarus, we need your wisdom." PRELUDE II Lazarus stared in horror. "What did you say?" "I said," Ira Weatheral repeated, "that we need your wisdom, sir. We do." "I thought that I was off again in one of those before-dying dreams. Son, you've come to the wrong window. Try across the hall." Weatheral shook his head. "No, sir. Oh, it isn't necessary to use the word 'wisdom' if it offends you. But we do need to learn what you know. \t>u are more than twice as old as the next oldest member of the Families. Nt>u mentioned that you have practiced more than fifty professions. You've been everywhere, you've seen far more than anyone else. You've certainly learned more than any of the rest of us. We aren't doing things much better now than we were two thousand years ago, when you were young. You must know why we are still making mistakes our ancestors made. It would be a great loss if you hurried your death without taking time to tell us what you have learned." Lazarus scowled and bit his lip. "Son, one of the few things I've learned is that humans hardly ever learn from the experience of others. They learn — when they do, which isn't often — on their own, the hard way." "That one statement is worth recording for all time." ”Hmm\ No one would learn anything from it; that's what it says. Ira, age does not bring wisdom. Often it merely changes simple stupidity into arrogant conceit. Its only advantage, so far as I have been able to see, is that it spans change. A young person sees the world as a still picture, immutable. An old person has had his nose rubbed in changes and more changes and still more changes so many times that he knows it is a moving picture, forever changing. He may not like is — probably doesn't; /don't — but he knows it's so, and knowing it is the first step in coping with it." "May I place in open record what you have just said?" "Huh? That's not wisdom, that's a cliche. An obvious truth. Any fool will admit that, even if he doesn't live by it." "It would carry greater weight with your name on it, Senior." "Do as you like; it's just horse sense. But if you think I have gazed upon the naked Face of God, think again. I haven't even begun to find out how the Universe works, much less what it is for. To figure out the basic questions about this World it would be necessary to stand outside and look at it. Not inside. No, not in two thousand years, not in twenty thousand. When a man dies, he may shake loose his local perspective and see the thing as a whole." "Then you believe in an afterlife?" "Slow up! I don't 'believe' in anything. I know certain things — little things, not the Nine Billion Names of God — from experience. But I have no beliefs. Belief gets in the way of learning." "That's what we want, Lazarus: what you have learned. Even though you say it's nothing but 'little things.' May I suggest that anyone who has managed to stay alive as long as you have must necessarily have learned many things, or you could not have lived so long? Most humans die violent deaths. The very fact that we live so much longer than our ancestors did makes this inevitable. Traffic accident, murder, wild animals, sports, pilot error, a slippery bit of mud — eventually something catches up with us. You haven't lived a safe, placid life — quite the contrary! — yet you have managed to outwit all hazards for twenty-three centuries. HoW? It can't be luck." "Why can't it be? The most unlikely things do happen, Ira there is nothing so unlikely as a baby. But it's true that I've always watched where I put my feet... and never fought when I could duck out... and when I did have to fight, I always fought dirty. If I had to fight, I wanted him to be dead instead of me. So I tried to arrange it that way. Not luck. Or not much, anyway." Lazarus blinked thoughtfully. "I've never argued with the weather. Once a mob wanted to lynch me. I didn't try to reason with them; I just put a lot of miles between me and them as fast as I could and never went back there." "That's not in any of your memoirs." "Lots of things not in my memoirs. Here comes chow." The door dilated, a dining table for two glided in, positioned itself as the chairs separated for it, and started unfolding to serve. The technicians approached quietly and offered unnecessary personal service. Weatheral said, "Smells good. Do you have any eating rituals?' "Eh? Praying or such? No." "Not that sort. Such as — Say one of my executives eats with me: I won't let him discuss business at the table. But if you will permit, I would like to continue this conversation." "Certainly, why not? As long as we stick to subjects that don't rile the stomach. Did you ever hear what the priest told the old maid?" Lazarus glanced at the technician at his elbow. "Perhaps not now. I think this shorter one is female and she just might know some English. \fc>u were saying?" "I was saying that your memoirs are incomplete. Even if you are determined to go through with dying, won't you consider granting me and your other descendants the rest of your memoirs? Simply talk, tell us what you've seen and done. Careful analysis might teach us quite a lot. For example, what did happen at that Families Meeting of 2012? The minutes don't tell much." "Who cares now, Ira? They're all dead. It would be my version without giving them a chance to answer back. Let sleeping dogs bury their own dead. Besides, I told you my memory was playing tricks. I've used Andy Libby's hypno- encyclopedic techniques — and they're good — and also learned tier storage for memory I didn't need every day, with keying words to let a tier cascade when I did need it, like a computer, and I have had my brain washed of useless memories several times in order to clear those file drawers for new data — and still it's no good. Half the time I can't remember where I put the book I was reading the night before, then waste a morning looking for it — before I remember that that book was one I was reading a century ago. Why won't you leave an old man in peace?" "All you have to do is to tell me to shut up, sir. But I hope you will not. Granted that memory is imperfect, nevertheless you were eyewitness to thousands of things the rest of us are too young to have seen. Oh, I’m not asking you to reel off a formal autobiography covering all your centuries. But you might reminisce about anything you care to talk about. For example, there is no record anywhere of your earliest years. I — and millions of others — would be extremely interested in whatever you remember of your boyhood." "What is there to remember? I spent my boyhood the way every boy does — trying to keep my elders from finding out what I was up to." Lazarus wiped his mouth and looked thoughtful. "On the whole I was successful. The few times I was caught and clobbered taught me to be more careful next time — keep my mouth shut more and not make my lies too complicated. Lying is one of the fine arts, Ira, and it seems to be dying out." "Really? I had not noticed any diminution." "I mean as a fine art. There are still plenty of clumsy liars, approximately as many as there are mouths. Do you know the two most artistic ways to lie?" "Perhaps I don't but I would like to learn. Just two?" "So far as I know. It's not enough to be able to lie with a straight face; anybody with enough gall to raise on a busted flush can do that. The first way to lie artistically is to tell the truth — but not all of it. The second way involves telling the truth, too, but is harder: Tell the exact truth and maybe all of it... but tell it so unconvincingly that your listener is sure you are lying. "I must have been twelve, thirteen years old before I got that one down pat. Learned it from my maternal Grampaw; I take after him quite a lot. He was a mean old devil. Wouldn't go inside a church or see a doctor — claimed that neither doctors nor preachers know what they pretend to know. At eighty-five he could crack nuts with his teeth and straight-arm a seventy-pound anvil by its horn. I left home about then and never saw him again. But the Families' Records say that he was killed in the Battle of Britain during the bombing of London, which was, some years after." "I know. He's my ancestor, too, of course, and I'm named for him, Ira Johnson."* (* (1) Ira Johnson was less than eighty at the time the Senior claims (elsewhere) to have left home. Ira Johnson was- himself a Doctor of Medicine. How long he practiced, and whether or not he ever let another Doctor of Medicine attend him, -are not known. J.F.45th (2) Ira Howard — Ira Johnson — This appears to be a chance coincidence of given names at a time when Biblical names were common. Families' genealogists have been unable to trace any consanguinity. J.F.45 th ) "Why, sure enough, that was his name. I just called him 'Gramp.'" "Lazarus, this is exactly the sort of thing I want to get on record. Ira Johnson is not only your grandfather and my remote grandfather but also is ancestor to many million people here and elsewhere — yet save for the few words you have just told me about him, he has been only a name, a date of birth, and a date of death, nothing more. You've suddenly brought him alive again — a man, a unique human being. Colorful." Lazarus looked thoughtful. "I never thought of him as 'colorful.' Matter offact he was an unsaveryold coot — not a 'good influence' — for a growing boy by the standards of those times. Mmm, there was something about a young school marm and him in the town my family had lived in, some scandal — 'scandal' for those days, I mean — and I think that was why we moved. I never got the straight of it as the grownups wouldn't talk about it in front of me. "But I did learn a lot from him; he had more time to talk with me-or took more time-than my parents had, Some of it stuck. 'Always cut the cards, Woodie,' he would say. '\bu may lose anyhow — but not as often, nor as much. And when you do, lose, smile.' Things like that." "Can you remember any more of what he said?" "Huh? After all these years? Of course not. Well, maybe. He had me out south of town teaching me to shoot. I was maybe ten and he was-oh, I don't know; he always seemed ninety years older than God to me.* (* Ira Johnson was seventy when Lazarus Long was ten. J.F. 45 th ) He pinned up a target, put one in the black to show me it could be done, then handed me the rifle — little .22 single-shot, not good for much but targets and tin cans — 'All right, it's loaded; do just what I did; get steady on it, relax and squeeze.' So I did, and all I heard was a click — it didn't fire. "I said so, and started to open the breech. He slapped my hand away, took the rifle from me with his other hand-then clouted me a good one. 'What did I tell you about hangfires, Woodie? Are you aching to walk around with one eye the rest of your life? Or merely trying to kill yourself? If the latter, I can show you several better ways. 1 "Then he said, 'Now watch closely 1 — and he opened the breech. Empty. So I said, 'But, Gramp, you told me it was loaded.' Shucks, Ira, I sawhim load, it — I thought. "'So I did, Woodie,' he agreed. 'And I lied to you. I went through the motions and palmed the cartridge. Now what did I tell you about loaded guns? Think hard and get it right... or I'll be forced to clout you again to shake up your brains and make 'em work better.' "I thought fast and got it right; Gramp had a heavy hand. 'Never take anybody's word about whether a gun is loaded.' "'Correct, 1 he agreed. 'Remember that all your life — and follow it! — or you won't live long.' *( This anecdote is too obscure to be elaborated here. See Howard Encyclopaedia: Ancient weapons, chemical-explosives firearms.) "Ira. I did remember that all my life — plus its application to analogous situations after such firearms went out of style and it has indeed kept me alive several times. "Then he had me load it myself, then said, 'Woodie, I'll bet you half a dollar — do you have half a dollar?' I had considerably more, but I had bet with him before, so I admitted to only a quarter. 'Okay,' he said, 'Make it two- bits; I never let 'a man bet on credit. Two-bits says you can't hit the target, much less stay in the black. 1 "Then he pocketed my two-bits and showed me what was wrong with what I had done. By the time he was ready to knock off I had the basics of howto make a gun do what I wanted it to do, and wanted to bet him again. He laughed at me and told me to be thankful the lesson was so cheap. Pass the salt, please." Weatheral did so. "Lazarus, if I could find a way to entice you into reminiscing about your grandfather — or about anything — I'm certain we could extract from such record endless things you have learned, important things — whether you choose to call them wisdom or not. In the last ten minutes you have stated half a dozen basic truths, or rules for living — call them what you will — apparently without trying." "Such as?" "Oh, for example, that most people learn only by experience — " "Correction. Most people won't learn even by experience, Ira. Never underestimate the power of human stupidity." "There's another one. And you 'made a couple of comments on the fine art of lying — three, really, as you also mentioned that a lie should never be too complicated. You said also that belief gets in the way of learning, and something about knowing a situation was the essential first step in coping with it." "I didn't say that — although I could have said it." "I generalized something you did say. \bu said also that you never 'argued with the weather. . .which I would generalize to mean: Don't indulge in wishful thinking. Or as 'Face up to the facts and act accordingly. 1 Though I prefer the way you put it; it has more flavor. And 'Always cut the cards.' I haven't played card games in many years, but I took that to mean: Never, neglect any available means of maximizing one's chances in a situation controlled by random events." "Hmm. Gramp would have said, 'Stow the fancy talk, Sonny.'" "So we'll put it back into his words: 'Always cut the cards... and smile when you lose.' If indeed that is not your own phrasing and simply attributed to him." "Oh, his all right. Well, I think it is. Damn it, Ira, after a long time it is hard to tell a real memory from a memory of a memory of a memory of a real memory. That's what happens when you think about the past: Nt>u edit it and rearrange it, make it more tolerable-" "That's another one!" "Oh, hush up. Son, I don't want to reminisce about the past; it's a sure sign of old age. Babies and young children live in the present, the 'now.' Mature adults tend to live in the future. Only the senile live in the past... and that was the sign that made me realize that I had lived long enough, when I found I was spending more and more time thinking about the past... less of it thinking about now — and not at all about the future." The old man sighed. "So I knew I had had it. The way to live a long time — oh, a thousand years or more — is something between the way a child does it and the way a mature man does it. Give the future enough thought to be ready for it — but don't worry about it. Live each day as if you were to die next sunrise. Then face each sunrise as a fresh creation and live for it, joyously. And never think about the past. No regrets, ever." Lazarus Long looked sad, then suddenly smiled and repeated, "'No regrets.' More wine, Ira?" "Haifa glass, thank you. Lazarus, if you are determined to die soon — your privilege, certainly! — what harm could there be in remembering the past now. ..and getting those memories on record for the benefit of your descendants? It would be a much greater legacy than leaving your wealth to us. Lazarus' eyebrows shot up. "Son, you are beginning to bore me." "\bur pardon, sire. May I have permission to leave?" "Oh, shut up and sit down. Finish your dinner. You remind me of — Well, there was this man on Novo Brasil who complied with the local custom of serial bigamy but was always careful to see that one of his wives was as utterly homely as the other was startlingly beautiful, so that — Ira, that dingus you have listening to us: Can it be keyed to pick out particular statements and arrange them as a separate memorandum?" "Certainly, sir." "Good. There's no point in telling how Ranch Master Silva? — yes, I think 'Silva' was his name, Dorn Pedro Silva — how he coped with it when he found himself stuck with two beautiful wives at once, except to note that when a computer makes a mistake, it is even more stupidly stubborn about correcting it than a man is. But if I thought long and hard, I might be able to dig out those 'gems of wisdom' you think I have. Paste diamonds, that is. Then we wouldn't have to load up the machine with dull stories about Dorn Pedro and the like. A keyword?" " 'Wisdom'?" "Go wash out your mouth with soap." "I will not. You stuck your chin into that one, Senior. 'Common sense'?" "Son, that phrase is self-contradictory. 'Sense' is never 'common.' Make the keying word 'Notebook' — that's all I have in mind, just a notebook to jot down things I've noticed and which might be important enough to place on record." "Fine! Shall I amend the programming now?" "\bu can do it from here? I don't want' you to interrupt your dinner." "It's a very flexible machine, Lazarus; the total complex is the one I use to govern this planet — to the mild extent that I do govern it." “In that case I feel sure you can hang an auxiliary printout in here, one triggered for the keying word. I might want to revise my sparkling gems of wisdom — meaning that extemporaneous remarks sound better when they aren’t extemporaneous — or why politicians have ghostwriters.” ‘“Ghost writers’? My command of Classic English is less than perfect; I don’t recognize the idiom.” “Ira, don’t tell me you write your own speeches.” “But, Lazarus, I don’t make speeches. Never. I just give orders, and — very seldom — make written reports to the Trustees.” “Congratulations. \bu can bet that there are ghost writers on Felicity. Or soon will be.” “I’ll have that printout installed at once, sir. Roman alphabet and twentieth-century spelling? If you intend to use the language we’ve been talking?” “Unless it would place too much strain on a poor innocent machine. If so, I can read it in phonetics. I think.” “It is a very flexible machine, sir; it taught me to speak this language — and earlier, to read it.” “Good, do it that way. But tell it not to correct my grammar. Human editors are difficult enough; I won’t accept such upstart behavior from a machine.” “Yes, sir. If you will excuse me one moment — ” The Chairman Pro Tern raised his voice slightly and shifted to the New Rome variant of Lingua Galacta. Then he spoke in the same language to the taller technician. The auxiliary printout was installed before the table served them coffee. After it was switched on, it whirred briefly. “What’s it doing?” asked Lazarus. “Checking its circuits?” “No, sir — printing. I tried an experiment. The machine has considerable judgment within the limits of its programs and memoried experience. In adding the extra program I told it also to go back, review everything you have said to me, and attempt to select all statements that sounded like aphorisms. I’m not sure it can do this, as any definition of ‘aphorism’ it has in its permanents is certain to be quite abstract. But I have hopes. However, I told it firmly: No editing.” “Well. The astounding thing about a waltzing bear is not, howgracefully it waltzes but that it waltzes at all.’ Not me, some other bloke; I’m quoting. Let’s see what it has.” Weatheral gestured; the shorter technician hurried to the machine, pulled a copy for each of them, fetched them back. Lazarus looked his copy over. “Mmmm. . .yes. That next one isn’t true — just a wisecrack. Must reword the third one little. Hey! It put a question mark after this one. What an impudent piece of junk; I checked that one out centuries before it was anything but unmined ore. Well, at least it didn’t try to revise it. Don’t recall saying that, ‘but it’s true and I durned near got killed learning it.” Lazarus looked up from the printout copy. “Okay, ‘Son. If you want this stuff on record, I don’t mind. As long as I am allowed to check and revise it. . .for I don’t want my words to be taken as Gospel unless I have a chance to winnow out the casual nonsense. Which I am just as capable of voicing as the next man.” “Certainly, sir. Nothing will go into the records without your approval. Unless you choose to use that switch . . in which case any unedited remarks you have left behind I will have to try to edit myself. That’s the best I can do.” “Trying to trap me, huh? Hmm — Ira, suppose I offer you a Scheherazade deal in reverse.” “I don’t understand.” “Is Scheherazade lost at last? Did Sir Richard Burton live in vain?” “Oh, no, sir! I have read The Thousand Nights and a Night in the Burton original. . .and her stories have come down through the centuries, changed again and again to make them understandable to new generations — but with, I think, the flavor retained. I simply do not understand what you are proposing.” “I see. Nt>u told me that talking with me is the most important thing you have to do.” “It is.” “I wonder. If you mean that, then you will be here every day to keep me company — and chat. For I’m not going to bother babbling to your machine no matter how smart it is.” “Lazarus, I will be not only honored but much pleased to be allowed to keep you company as long as you will let me.” “We’ll see. ‘When a man makes a sweeping statement, he often has mental reservations. I mean every day, Son, and all day. And you — not a deputy. Show up two hours after breakfast, say, and stay till I send you home. But any day you miss — Well, if it’s so urgent you just have to miss, phone your excuses and send over a pretty girl to visit me. One who speaks Classic English but has sense enough to listen instead — as an old fool will often talk to a pretty girl who just bats her lashes at him and looks impressed. If she pleases me, I might let her stay. Or I might be so petulant that I would send her away and use that switch you promised to have reinstalled. But I won’t suicide in the presence of a guest; that’s rude. Understand me?” “I think I do,” Ira Weatheral answered slowly. “Ntiu’ll be both Scheherazade and King Shabryar, and I'll be — no, that’s not right; / am the one who has to keep it going for a thousand nights — I mean ‘days’ — and if I miss — but I won’t! — you are free to — ’’ “Don’t push an analogy too far,” Lazarus advised. “I'm simply calling your bluff. If my maunderings are as all- fired important to you as you claim, then you’ll show up and listen. You can skip once, or even twice, if the girl is pretty enough and knows howto tickle my vanity — of which I have plenty — just right. But if you skip too often, I’ll know you’re bored and the deal is off. I’m betting that your patience will’ wear out long before any thousand days and a day have passed — whereas I do know how to be patient, for year after year if necessary; that’s a prime reason I’m still alive. But you’re still a youngster; I’m betting I can outsit you.” “I accept the bet. This girl — if I must be away some day — would you object if I sent one of my daughters? She’s very pretty.” “Hunh? Nfciu sound like an Iskandrian slave factor auctioning his mother. Why your daughter? I don’t want to marry her, nor even to bed her; I simply want to be amused and flattered. Who told you she was pretty? If she really is your’ daughter, she probably looks like you.” “Come off it, Lazarus; you can’t annoy me that easily. I admit to a father’s prejudice but I’ve seen the effect she has on others. She is quite young, less than eighty, and has been contractually married only once. But you specified a pretty girl who speaks your milk language. Scarce. But this one of my daughters shares my talent for languages and is much excited by your presence here — wants to meet you. I can stall off emergencies long enough for her to become letter-perfect in your language.” Lazarus grinned and shrugged. “Suit yourself. Tell her not to bother with a chastity girdle; I don’t have the energy. But I’ll still win the bet. Probably without laying eyes on her; it won’t take you long to decide that I am an unbearable old bore. Which I am and have been almost as long as the Wandering Jew — a crashing bore if I ever met one — did I tell you I had met him?” “No. And I don’t believe you have. He's a myth.” “A fat lot you know about it, Son. I have met him, he is authentic. Fought the Romans in 70 A. D. when Jerusalem was sacked. Fought in every Crusade — incited one of them. Redheaded of course; all of the natural long-lifers bear the mark of Gilgamesh. When I met him he was using the name Sandy Macdougal, that being a better handle for the time and place for his current trade, which was the long con, with a variant on the badger game.* (* While this passage bears inner contradictions, the idioms are authentic for North America of the twentieth century. They name certain types of financial dishonesty. See “Swindles” under “Fraud” in Krishnamurti’s NewGolden Bough, Academe Press, New Rome. J.F. 45 th ) The latter involved — Look, Ira, if you don’t believe my stories, why are you going to so much trouble to get them on record?” “Lazarus, if you think you can bore me to death — correction: to your death — why are you bothering to invent fictions to entertain me? Whatever your reasons, I’ll listen as carefully — and as long — as King Shabryar. As may be, my master computer is recording whatever you choose to say — without editing; I guaranteed that — but it has incorporated into it a most subtle truth analyzer quite capable of earmarking any fictions you include. Not that I care about historicity as long as you will talk ... as it is clear to me that you automatically include your evaluations — those ‘gems of wisdom’ — no matter what you say.” ‘“Gems of wisdom.’ \bungster, use that expression once more and you'll stay after school and clean the blackboards. That computer of yours — Better instruct it that my most outlandish tales are the ones most likely to be true — as that is the literal truth. No storyteller has ever been able to dream up anything as fantastically unlikely as what really does happen in this mad Universe.” “It knows that. But I will caution it again. You were telling me about Sandy Macdougal, the Wandering Jew.” “Was I? If so and if he was using that name, that must have been late in the twentieth century and in Vancouver, as I recall. Vancouver was a part of the United States where the people were so clever that they never paid taxes to Washington — Sandy should have operated in New\brk, which was outstanding in stupidity even then. I won’t give details of his swindles; it might corrupt your machine. Let it suffice that Sandy used the oldest principle for separating a fool from his money: Pick a sucker who likes the best of it. “That’s all it takes, Ira. If a man is greedy, you can cheat him every time. Trouble was, Sandy Macdougal was even greedier than his marks, and it led him into the folly of excess, and often forced him to leave town while it was dark, sometimes leaving the boodle behind. Ira, when you skin a man, you have to let him recuperate and grow more hide — or he gets nervous. If you respect this simple rule, a real mark can be skinned over and over again, and it just keeps him healthy and productive. But Sandy was too greedy for that; he lacked patience.” “Lazarus, you sound as if you had great experience in this art.” Now Ira — a little respect please I have never swindled a man. At most I kept quiet and let him swindle himself. This does no harm, as a fool cannot be protected from his folly. If you attempt to do so, you will not only arouse his animosity but also you will be attempting to deprive him of whatever benefit he is capable of deriving from experience. Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig. “But I do know a lot about swindles. I think that every major variation of every possible swindle has been tried on me, one time and another. “Some of them worked back when I was very young. Then I took Grampaw Johnson’s advice and quit looking for the best of it; thereafter I could no longer be swindled. But I was not capable of benefiting from Gramp’s advice until I was burned a few times. Ira, it’s getting late.” The Chairman Pro Tern promptly stood up. “So it is, sir. May I ask two questions before I leave? Not for your memoirs, procedural questions only.” “Make it short and snappy.” “\bu’ll have your termination-option switch tomorrow morning. But, you spoke of not feeling well, and there is no need for that even if you choose to terminate in the near future. Shall we resume the rejuvenation procedures? “Hmmm. Second question?” “I promised to do my best to find something brand-new to interest you. I promised also to spend every day here with you. I see conflict.” Lazarus grinned. “Don’t kid your old Grampaw, Son; you'll delegate that research.” “Certainly. But I must plan how to start it, then review progress at intervals, and suggest new avenues to explore." “Mmm...if I consent to the full course, I’ll be out of circulation a day or two every now and then." “I believe current practice calls for one day of deep rest approximately each week, varied to suit the client’s condition. My own experience is about a hundred years back; I understand there have been improvements. \t>u’ve decided to take it, sir?” “I’ll tell you tomorrow — after that switch is installed. Ira, I don’t make decisions in haste that don’t call for haste. But if I consent, you’ll have free time to use as you see fit. G’night, Ira.” “Good night, Lazarus. I hope you decide to accept it.” Weatheral turned toward the door, stopped halfway there, and spoke to the technicians — who left the room at once. The dining table scurried after them. Once the door had shut down Weatheral turned and-faced Lazarus Long. “Grandfather,” he said softly, his voice somewhat choked. “Uh — may I?” Lazarus had let his chair sink back into a reclining couch that held him, hammocklike, as tenderly as a mother’s arms. At the younger man’s words he raised his head. “Huh? What? Oh! All right, all right, come here — Grandson.” He reached out one arm to Weatheral. The Chairman Pro Tern hurried to him, took Lazarus' hand, dropped to his knees and kissed it. Lazarus snatched his hand back. “For Pete’s sake! Don’t kneel to me — don’t ever do that. If you want to be my grandson, treat me as such. Not that way.” “Yes, Grandfather.” Weatheral got to his feet, leaned over the old man, and kissed his mouth. Lazarus patted his cheek. “You’re a sentimentalist, Grandson. But a good boy. Trouble is, there never has been much demand for good boys. Now get that solemn expression off your face and go home and get a good night’s rest.” “\fes, Grandfather. I will. Good night.” “Good night. Now beat it.” Weatheral left quickly. The technicians jumped aside as he came out, then went back into the suite. Weatheral continued on, ignoring people around him but with a softer, gentler expression on his face than was his wont. He went past a bank of transports to the Director’s private transport; it opened to his voice, then conveyed him quickly into the bowels of the city and directly to the Executive Palace. Lazarus looked up as his attendants came back in; he motioned the taller one to him. The technician’s voice, filtered and distorted bythe helmet, said carefully, “Bed. ..sir?’ “No, I want — ” Lazarus paused, then spoke to the air, “Computer? Can you speak? If not, print it out.” “I hear you, Senior,” a mellifluous, contralto voice answered. “Tell this nurse that I want whatever they are allowed to give me for pain. I have work to do.” “\fes, Senior.” The disembodied voice shifted to Lingua Galacta, was answered in kind, then went on: “Master Chief Technician on duty wishes to know the nature and location of your pain, and adds that you should not work tonight." Lazarus kept silent while he counted ten chimpanzees in his mind. Then he said softly “Damn it, I hurt everywhere. And I don’t want advice from a child. I have loose ends to tidy up before I sleep... because one never knows that one will wake up again. Forget the painkiller, it ain’t all that important. Tell 'em to get out and stay out.” Lazarus tried to ignore the ensuing exchange, as it annoyed him that he almost-not-quite understood it. He opened the envelope Ira Weatheral had returned to him, then opened out his will — a long bellows-fold of computer printout — and started reading it while whistling off key. “Senior, Master Chief technician on duty states that you have given a null order, which is a true statement by the Clinic’s regulations. A general analgesic is forthcoming.” “Forget it.” Lazarus went on reading, and shifted to singing softly the tune he had been whistling: “There’s a pawnshop on the corner Where I usually keep my overcoat. “There’s a bookie Behind the pawnshop Who handles my investments” * (* This doggerel is attributed to the twentieth century. See appendix for semantic analysis. J.F.45th) The taller technician appeared at his elbow, carrying a shiny disk with attached tubing. “For... pain." Lazarus made a brush-off gesture with his free hand. “Go ‘way, I’m busy.” The shorter technician appeared on his other side. Lazarus looked that way and said, “What do you want?” As he turned his head the taller technician moved quickly; Lazarus felt a sting in his forearm. He rubbed the spot and said, “Why, you rapscallion. Foxed me, didn’t you? All right, beat it. Raus. Scat!” He dismissed the incident from his mind and returned to work. A moment later he said: “Computer!" “Awaiting your orders, Senior.” “Record this for printout. I, Lazarus Long, sometimes known as the Senior and listed in the Howard Families’ Genealogies as Woodrow Wilson Smith, born 1912, do declare this to be my last will and testament — Computer, go back through my talk with Ira and dig out what I said I wanted to do to help him lead a migration — got it?” “Retrieved, Senior.” “Fix up the language and tack it onto my opening statement. And — let me see — add something like this: In the event Ira Weatheral fails to qualify for inheritance, then all my worldly wealth of which I die possessed shall go to, uh, to — to found a home for indigent and superannuated pickpockets, prostitutes, panhandlers, piemen, priggers, and other unworthy poor starting with ‘ P’ . Got it?” “Recorded, Senior. Please be advised that this alternative has a high probability of being nullified if tested by the current rules of this planet.” Lazarus expressed a rhetorical and physiologically improbable wish. “All right, set it up for stray cats or some other useless but legally acceptable purpose. Search your permanents for such a purpose that wll get by the courts. Just be certain that the Trustees can’t get their hands on it. Understand?’ “There is no wayto be certain of that, Senior, but it will be attempted.” “Look for a loophole. Print that out as fast as you can research it and put it together. Now stand by for a memorandum of my assets. Begin.” Lazarus started to read the list, found that his eyes were blurring and would not focus. “Damnation! Those dummies slipped me a Mickey and it’s taking hold. Blood! I must have a drop of my own blood to thumbprint it! Tell those dummies to help me and tell them why — and warn them that I will bite my tongue to get it if they won't help me. Now printout my will with any feasible alternative — but hurry!” “Printout starting,” the computer answered quietly, then shifted to Galacta. The “dummies” did not argue with the computer; they moved fast, one snatching the new sheet out of the auxiliary printout the instant it stopped whirring, the other producing a sterile point out of nowhere and stabbing the ball of Lazarus’ left little finger after giving Lazarus a split second to see what was being done. Lazarus did not wait for blood to be taken by pipette. He squeezed the stabbed finger for a drop, rubbed his right thumb in it, then print-signed his will while the shorter technician held it for him. Then he sank back. “It’s done,” he whispered. “Tell Ira.” He was heavily asleep at once. COUNTERPOINT I The chair gently transferred Lazarus to his bed while the technicians silently supervised. Then the shorter watched the readouts on respiration, heart action, brain rhythms, and other physicals while the taller placed the documents, old will and new, in an impervolope, sealed it, chopped and thumb-printed the seal, marked it “Surrender only to the Senior and/or Mr. Chairman Pro Tern,” then retained it until their reliefs arrived. The relief chief technician listened to the record of the watch, glanced over the physicals, studied the sleeping client. “Timed,” he stated. “Neolethe. Thirty-four hours.” He whistled. “Another crisis?” “Less severe than the last. Pseudopain with irrational irascibility. Physicals within limits for this stage.” “What’s in the sealer?” “Just sign for it and include delivery instructions i