Methuselah's Children (27 page)

Lazarus Long turned away from Rodney. "It's like this, Skipper-we hightailed it out of the Solar System to save our necks, because the rest of the yokels thought we had invented some way to live forever and proposed to squeeze it out of us if they had to kill every one of us. Now everything is sweetness and light-so they say. But it seems mighty funny that the bird they send up to smoke the pipe of peace with us should still be convinced that we have that so-called secret.

"It got me to wondering.

"Suppose they hadn't figured out a way to keep from dying from old age but were still clinging to the idea that we had? What better way to keep us calmed down and unsuspicious than to tell us they had until they could get us where they wanted us in order to put the question to us again?"

Rodney snorted. "A preposterous idea! Captain, I don't think I'm called on to put up with this."

Lazarus stared coldly. "It was preposterous the first time, bub-but it happened. The burnt child is likely to be skittish."

"Just a moment, both of you," ordered King. "Ralph, how about it? Could you have been taken in by a put-up job?"

Schultz thought about it, painfully. "I don't think so." He paused. "It's rather difficult to say. I couldn't tell from appearance of course, any more than our own Members could be picked out from a crowd of normal persons."

"But you are a psychologist. Surely you could have detected indications of fraud, if there had been one."

"I may be a psychologist, but I'm not a miracle man and I'm not telepathic. I wasn't looking for fraud." He grinned sheepishly. "There was another factor. I was so excited over being home that I was not in the best emotional condition to note discrepancies, if there were any."

"Then you aren't sure?"

"No. I am emotionally convinced that Miles Rodney is telling the truth-"

"I am!"

"-and I believe that a few questions could clear the matter up. He claims to be one hundred and five years old. We can test that."

"I see," agreed King. "Hmm . . . you put the questions, Ralph?"

"Very well. You will permit, Miles Rodney?"

"Go ahead," Rodney answered stiffly.

"You must have been about thirty years old when we left Earth, since we have been gone nearly seventy-five years, Earth time. Do you remember the event?"

"Quite clearly. I was a clerk in Novak Tower at the time, in the offices of the Administrator."

Slayton Ford had remained in the background throughout the discussion, and had done nothing to call attention to himself. At Rodney's answer he sat up. "Just a moment, Captain-"

"Eh? Yes?"

"Perhaps I can cut this short. You'll pardon me, Ralph?" He turned to Terra's representative. "Who am I?"

Rodney looked at him in some puzzlement. His expression changed from one of simple surprise at the odd question to complete and unbelieving bewilderment. "Why, you . . .
you
are
Administrator Ford!"

7

"One at a time! One at a time," Captain King was saying. "Don't everybody try to talk at once. Go on, Slayton; you have the floor. You know this man?"

Ford looked Rodney over. "No, I can't say that I do."

"Then it
is
a frame up." King turned to Rodney. "I suppose you recognized Ford from historical stereos-is that right?"

Rodney seemed about to burst. "No! I recognized him. He's changed but I knew him. Mr. Administrator-look at me, please! Don't you know me? I
worked
for you!"

"It seems fairly obvious that he doesn't," King said dryly.

Ford shook his head. "It doesn't prove anything, one way or the other, Captain. There were over two thousand civil service employees in my office. Rodney might have been one of them. His face looks vaguely familiar, but so do most faces."

"Captain-" Master Gordon Hardy was speaking. "If I can question Miles Rodney I might be able to give an opinion as to whether or not they actually have discovered anything new about the causes of old age and death."

Rodney shook his head. "I am not a biologist. You could trip me up in no time. Captain King, I ask you to arrange my return to Earth as quickly as possible. I'll not be subjected to any more of this. And let me add that I do not care a minim whether you and your-your pretty crew ever get back to civilization or not I came here to help, you, but I'm disgusted." He stood up.

Slayton Ford went toward him. "Easy, Miles Rodney, please! Be patient. Put yourself in their place. You would be just as cautious if you had been through what they have been through."

Rodney hesitated. "Mr. Administrator, what are
you
doing here?"

"It's a long and complicated story. I'll tell you later."

"You are a member of the Howard Families-you must be. That accounts for a lot of odd things."

Ford shook his head "No, Miles Rodney, I am not. Later, please-I'll explain it. You worked for me once-when?"

"From 2109 until you, uh, disappeared."

"What was your job?"

"At the time of the crisis of 2113 I was an assistant correlation clerk in the Division of Economic Statistics, Control Section."

"Who was your section chief?"

"Leslie Waldron."

"Old Waldron, eh? What was the color of his hair?"

"His hair? The Walrus was bald as an egg."

Lazarus whispered to Zaccur Barstow, "Looks like I was off base, Zack."

"Wait a moment," Barstow whispered back. "It still could be thorough preparation-they may have known that Ford escaped with us."

Ford was continuing, "What was
The Sacred Cow
?"

"
The Sacred
- Chief, you weren't even supposed to know that there was such a publication!"

"Give my intelligence staff credit for some activity, at least," Ford said dryly. "I got my copy every week."

"But what was it?" demanded Lazarus.

Rodney answered, "An office comic and gossip sheet that was passed from hand to hand."

"Devoted to ribbing the bosses," Ford added, "especially me." He put an arm around Rodney's shoulders. "Friends, there is no doubt about it. Miles and I were fellow workers."

"I still want to find out about the new rejuvenation process," insisted Doctor Hardy some time later.

"I think we all do," agreed King. He reached out and refilled their guest's wine glass. "Will you tell us about it, sir?"

"I'll try." Miles Rodney answered, "though I must ask Doctor Hardy to bear with me. It's not one process, but several-one basic process and several dozen others, some of them purely cosmetic, especially for women. Nor is the basic process truly a rejuvenation process. You can arrest the progress of old age, but you can't reverse it to any significant degree-you can't turn a senile old man into a boy."

"Yes, yes," agreed Hardy. "Naturally-but what is the basic process?"

"It consists largely in replacing the entire blood tissue in an old person with new, young blood. Old age, so they tell me, is primarily a matter of the progressive accumulation of the waste poisons of metabolism. The blood is supposed to carry them away, but presently the blood gets so clogged with the poisons that the scavenging process doesn't take place properly. Is that right, Doctor Hardy?"

"That's an odd way of putting it, but-"

"I told you I was no biotechnician."

"-essentially correct It's a matter of diffusion pressure deficit-the d.p.d. on the blood side of a cell wall must be such as to maintain a fairly sharp gradient or there will occur progressive autointoxication of the individual cells. But I must say that I feel somewhat disappointed, Miles Rodney. The basic idea of holding off death by insuring proper scavenging of waste products is not new-I have a bit of chicken heart which has been alive for two and one half centuries through equivalent techniques. As to the use of young blood-yes, that will work. I've kept experimental animals alive by such blood donations to about twice their normal span." He stopped and looked troubled.

"Yes, Doctor Hardy?"

Hardy chewed his lip. "I gave up that line of research. I found it necessary to have several young donors in order to keep one beneficiary from growing any older. There was a small, but measurable, unfavorable effect on each of the donors. Racially it was self-defeating; there would never be enough donors to go around. Am I to understand, sir, that this method is thereby limited to a small, select part of the population?"

"Oh, no! I did not make myself clear, Doctor Hardy. There are no donors."

"Huh?"

"New blood, enough for everybody, grown outside the body-the Public Health and Longevity Service can provide any amount of it, any type."

Hardy looked startled. "To think we came so close . . . so that's it." He paused, then went on. "We tried tissue culture of bone marrow
in vitro.
We should have persisted."

"Don't feel badly about it. Billions of credits and tens of thousands of technicians engaged in this project before there were any significant results. I'm told that the mass of accumulated art in this field represents more effort than even the techniques of atomic engineering." Rodney smiled. "You see, they
had
to get some results; it was politically necessary-so there was an all-out effort." Rodney turned to Ford. "When the news about the escape of the Howard Families reached the public, Chief, your precious successor had to be protected from the mobs."

Hardy persisted with questions about subsidiary techniques-tooth budding, growth inhibiting, hormone therapy, many others-until King came to Rodney's rescue by pointing out that the prime purpose of the visit was to arrange details of the return of the Families to Earth.

Rodney nodded. "I think we should get down to business. As I understand it, Captain, a large proportion of your people are now in reduced-temperature somnolence?"

("Why can't he say 'cold-rest'?" Lazarus said to Libby.)

"Yes, that is so."

"Then it would be no hardship on them to remain in that state for a time."

"Eh? Why do you say that, sir?"

Rodney spread his hands. "The administration finds itself in a somewhat embarrassing position. To put it bluntly, there is a housing shortage. Absorbing one hundred and ten thousand displaced persons can't be done overnight."

Again King had to hush them. He then nodded to Zaccur Barstow, who addressed himself to Rodney. "I fail to see the problem, sir. What is the present population of the North American continent?"

"Around seven hundred million."

"And you can't find room to tuck away one-seventieth of one per cent of that number? It sounds preposterous."

"You don't understand, sir," Rodney protested. "Population pressure has become our major problem. Co-incident with it, the right to remain undisturbed in the enjoyment of one's own homestead, or one's apartment, has become the most jealously guarded of all civil rights. Before we can find you adequate living room we must make over some stretch of desert, or make other major arrangements."

"I get it," said Lazarus. "Politics. You don't dast disturb anybody for fear they will squawk."

"That's hardly an adequate statement of the case."

"It's not, eh? Could be you've got a general election coming up, maybe?"

"As a matter of fact we have, but that has nothing to do with the case."

Lazarus snorted.

Justin Foote spoke up. "It seems to me that the administration has looked at this problem in the most superficial light. It is not as if we were homeless immigrants. Most of the Members own their own homes. As you doubtless know, the Families were well-to-do, even wealthy, and for obvious reasons we built our homes to endure. I feel sure that most of those structures are still standing."

"No doubt," Rodney conceded, "but you will find them occupied."

Justin Foote shrugged. "What has that to do with us? That is a problem for the government to settle with the persons it has allowed illegally to occupy our homes. As for myself, I shall land as soon as possible, obtain an eviction order from the nearest court, and repossess my home."

"It's not that easy. You can make omelet from eggs, but not eggs from omelet. You have been legally dead for many years; the present occupant of your house holds a good title."

Justin Foote stood up and glared at the Federation's envoy, looking, as Lazarus thought, "like a cornered mouse." "Legally dead! By whose act, sir, by whose act? Mine? I was a respected solicitor, quietly and honorably pursuing my profession, harming no one, when I was arrested without cause and forced to flee for my life. Now I am blandly told that my property is confiscated and my very legal existence as a person and as a citizen has been taken from me because of that sequence of events. What manner of justice is this? Does the Covenant still stand?"

"You misunderstand me. I-"

"I misunderstood nothing. If justice is measured out only when it is convenient, then the Covenant is not worth the parchment it is written on. I shall make of myself a test case, sir, a test case for every Member of the Families. Unless my property is returned to me in full and at once I shall bring personal suit against every obstructing official. I will make of it a
cause celebre.
For many years I have suffered inconvenience and indignity and peril; I shall not be put off with words. I will shout it from the housestops." He paused for breath.

"He's right, Miles," Slayton Ford put in quietly. "The government had better find some adequate way to handle this-and quickly."

Lazarus caught Libby's eye and silently motioned toward the door. The two slipped outside. "Justin'll keep 'em busy for the next hour," he said. "Let's slide down to the Club and grab some calories."

"Do you really think we ought to leave?"

"Relax. If the skipper wants us, he can holler."

8

Lazarus tucked away three sandwiches, a double order of ice cream, and some cookies while Libby contented himself with somewhat less. Lazarus would have eaten more but he was forced to respond to a barrage of questions from the other habitués of the Club.

"The commissary department ain't really back on its feet," he complained, as he poured his third cup of coffee. "The Little People made life too easy for them. Andy, do you like chili con carne?"