The feeling was indescribable. Now, for the first time, Blaine realized what men had lived with before the discovery of the scientific hereafter. He remembered the heavy, sodden, constant, unconscious fear of death that subtly weighted every action and permeated every movement. The ancient enemy death, the shadow that crept down the corridors of a man’s mind like some grisly tapeworm, the ghost that haunted nights and days, the croucher behind corners, the shape behind doors, the unseen guest at every banquet, the unidentified figure in every landscape, always present, always waiting—
No more.
For now a tremendous weight had been lifted from his mind. The fear of death was gone, intoxicatingly gone, and he felt light as air. Death, that ancient enemy, was defeated!
HE returned to his apartment in a state of high euphoria. The telephone was ringing as he unlocked the door.
“Blaine speaking!”
“Tom!” It was Marie Thorne. “Where have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you all afternoon.”
“I’ve been out, darling,” Blaine said. “Where in hell have you been?”
“I’ve been trying to find out what Rex is up to. Now listen carefully. I have some important news for you.”
“I’ve got some news for you, sweetheart,” Blaine said.
“Listen to me! A man will call at your apartment today. He’ll be a salesman from Hereafter, Inc., and he will offer you free hereafter insurance. Don’t take it.”
“Why not? Is he a fake?”
“No, he’s perfectly genuine, and so is the offer. But you mustn’t take it.”
“I already did,” Blaine said.
“You what?”
“He was here a few hours ago. I accepted it.”
“Have they treated you yet?”
“Yes. Was that a fake?”
“No,” Marie said, “of course it wasn’t. Oh, Tom, when will you learn not to accept gifts from strangers? There was time for hereafter insurance later. Oh, you fool, you complete and absolute fool!”
“What’s wrong?” Blaine asked. “It was a grant from the Main-Farbenger Textile Corporation.”
“They are owned completely by the Rex Corporation,” Marie told him.
“Oh . . . But so what?”
“The directors of Rex gave you that grant! They used Main-Farbenger as a front, but Rex gave you the grant! Can’t you see what it means?”
“No. Will you please stop screaming and explain?”
“Tom, it’s the Permitted Murder section of the Suicide Act. They’re going to invoke it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the section of the Suicide Act that makes host-taking legal. Rex has guaranteed the survival of your mind after death and you’ve accepted it. Now they can legally take your body for any purpose they desire. They own it. They can kill your body, Tom! And they’re going to.”
“Kill me? Why?”
“It’s that recording you made when you first came to 2110. It’s been bootlegged all over the city and the organized religions have gotten hold of it. You say on the recording that you don’t remember anything about the Threshold, even though you were in it before being reborn. Right?”
“Sure. So?”
“So the religions are planning to use that against Rex, to disprove the validity of the scientific hereafter. They want you to testify to the authenticity of the recording. And Rex will do anything to stop you from testifying. If the religions scored their point, Rex would lose any chance at the religious market. They’d probably lose a lot of other customers, too.”
BLAINE frowned. “Tell Rex I won’t testify. Won’t that satisfy them?”
“They don’t trust you. They can’t afford to. Rex has already gone into action to prove that your recording is a forgery. They’ve bribed that phony from the past, that Ben Therler, to come forward and say he’s you, and to admit that he’s not from the past. Therler is saying he faked the whole thing for publicity reasons. And of course he is a fake, so it’s easy to prove.”
“So that leaves me—”
“It leaves you a potential danger that Rex wants to get rid of as quickly as possible, before the religions find you and check your authenticity against Therler’s. The quickest and surest way of getting rid of you is by killing you.”
“Can’t you convince them I won’t talk?” Blaine asked.
“I’m afraid they won’t listen to anything I tell them. I’m in trouble myself.”
“Why?”
“Because they found I smuggled out your recording.”
“You did?”
“I’ve been an agent of the religions for a long time,” Marie told him. “I’m not particularly religious, but I felt that Rex and the Hereafter Corporation were getting too much of a stranglehold on the world. I don’t like to see anybody doing that. But there’s no time to talk about it now. Tom, you must get out of New York, then out of the country. Maybe they’ll leave you alone then. I’ll help all I can. I think that you should—”
The telephone went dead.
Blaine clicked the receiver several times, but got no dial tone. Apparently the line had been cut.
The elation he had been filled with a few minutes ago drained out of him. The intoxicating sense of freedom from death vanished. How could he have contemplated berserking? He wanted to live. He wanted to live in the flesh, upon the Earth he knew and loved.
Spiritual existence was fine, but he didn’t want it yet. Not for a long time. He wanted to live among tangible objects, breathe air, eat solids and drink liquids, feel flesh surrounding him, touch other flesh.
When would they try to kill him? Any time at all. His apartment was like a trap.
Blaine scooped all his money into a pocket and hurried to the door. He opened it and looked up and down the hall. It was empty.
He ran down the corridor, and stopped.
A man had just come around the corner. The man was standing in the center of the hall. He was carrying a large projector, which was aimed at Blaine’s stomach.
The man was Sammy Jones.
JONES sighed. “Believe me, Tom, I’m damned sorry it’s you. But business is business.” Blaine stood, frozen, as the projector lifted to level on his chest.
“Why you?” Blaine managed to ask.
“Who else?” Sammy Jones said. “Ain’t I the best hunter in the Western Hemisphere, and probably Europe, too? Rex hired every one of us in the New York area. But with beam and projectile weapons this time. I’m sorry it’s you, Tom.”
“But I’m a hunter, too,” Blaine objected.
“You won’t be the first hunter that got gunned. It’s the breaks of the game, lad. Don’t flinch. I’ll make it quick and clean.”
“I don’t want to die!”
“Why not?” Jones asked. “You’ve got your hereafter insurance.”
“I was tricked! I want to live! Sammy, don’t do it!”
Sammy Jones’ face hardened. He took careful aim, then lowered the gun.
“All right, Tom, start moving. Every Quarry should have a little head start, a sporting chance. Now get going. You’re not entitled to as much of a lead in the city as the countryside, so don’t waste any time.”
“Thanks, Sammy,” Blaine said, and hurried down the hall.
“But, Tom, watch your step if you really want to live. I’m telling you, New York is full of hunters right now, all of them after you. And every means of transportation is guarded.”
“Thanks,” Blaine called, as he hurried down the stairs.
He was in the street, but he didn’t know where to go. Still, he had no time for indecision. It was late afternoon, hours before darkness could help him. He picked a direction in great haste and began walking.
Almost instinctively, his steps were leading him toward the slums of the city.
HE walked past the rickety tenements and ancient apartment houses, past the cheap saloons and nightclubs, hands thrust in his pockets, trying to think. He had to flee New
York.
Jones had told him that the transportation services were being watched. What hope had he then? He was unarmed, defenseless—
Well, perhaps he could change that. With a gun in his hand, things would be a little different. In fact, things might be very different indeed. As Hull had pointed out, a hunter could legally shoot a Quarry, but if a Quarry shot a hunter, he was subject to arrest and severe penalties.
If he did shoot a hunter, the police would have to arrest him! It would all get very involved, but it would save him from the immediate danger.
He walked until he came to a pawnshop. In the window was a glittering array of projectile and beam weapons, hunting rifles, knives and machetes. Blaine went in.
“I want a gun,” he said to the mustached man behind the counter.
“A gun. So. And what kind of a gun?” the man asked.
“Have you got any beamers?”
The man nodded and went to a drawer. He took out a gleaming handgun with a bright copper finish.
“Now this,” he said, “is a special buy. It’s a genuine Sailes-Byrn needlebeam, used for hunting big Venusian game. At five hundred yards, you can cut through anything that walks, crawls or flies. On the side is the aperture selector. You can fan wide for close-range work, or extend to a needle point for distance shooting.”
“Fine, fine,” Blaine said, pulling bills from his pocket.
“This button here,” the pawnbroker went on, “controls length of blast. Set as is, you get a standard fractional jolt. One click extends time to a quarter second. Put it on automatic and it’ll cut like a scythe. It has a power supply of over four hours, and there’s more than three hours still left in the original pack. What’s more, you can use this weapon in your home workshop. With a special mounting and a baffle to cut down the power, you can slice plastic with this better than with a saw, A different baffle converts it into a blowtorch. The baffles can be purchased—”
“I’ll buy it,” Blaine broke in.
The pawnbroker nodded. “May I see your permit, please?”
BLAINE took out his hunter’s license and showed it to the man. The pawnbroker nodded, and, with maddening slowness, filled out a receipt for the gun.
The pawnbroker said, “That’ll be seventy-five dollars.” As Blaine pushed the money across the counter, the pawnbroker consulted a list on the wall behind him.
“I can’t sell you that weapon.”
“Why not?” Blaine demanded. “You saw my hunter’s license.”
“But you didn’t tell me you were a registered Quarry. You know a Quarry can’t legally have weapons. Your name was flashed here half an hour ago. You can’t buy a legal weapon anywhere in New York, Mr. Blaine.”
The pawnbroker pushed the bills back across the counter. Blaine grabbed for the needlebeam. The pawnbroker scooped it up first and leveled it at him.
“I ought to save them the trouble,” he said. “You’ve got your damned hereafter. What else do you want?”
Blaine stood perfectly still. The pawnbroker lowered the gun.
“But that’s not my job,” he said. “The hunters will get you soon enough.”
He reached under the counter and pressed a button. Blaine turned and ran out of the store. It was growing dark. But his location had been revealed. The hunters would be closing in now.
He thought he heard someone calling his name. He pushed through the crowds, not daring to look back, trying to think of something to do. He couldn’t have come 152 years through time to be shot before a million people! It wasn’t fair!
He noticed a man following close behind him, grinning. It was Theseus, gun out, waiting for a clear shot.
Blaine put on a burst of speed, dodged through the crowds and turned quickly into a side street. He sprinted down it, then came to a sudden stop.
At the far end of the street, silhouetted against the light, a man was standing. The man had one hand on his hip, the other raised in a shooting position. Blaine hesitated and glanced back at Theseus.
The little hunter fired, scorching Blaine’s sleeve. Blaine ran toward an open door, which was suddenly slammed in his face. A second shot charred his coat.
WITH dreamlike clarity, he watched the hunters advance, Theseus close behind him, the other hunter in the distance, blocking the way out. Blaine ran on leaden feet toward the more distant man, over manhole covers and subway gratings, past shuttered stores and locked buildings.
“Back off, Theseus!” the hunter called. “I got him!”
“Take him, Hendrick!” Theseus called back, and flattened himself against a wall, out of the way of the blast.
The gunman, fifty feet away, took aim and fired. Blaine fell flat and the beam missed him. He rolled, trying to make the inadequate shelter of a doorway. The beam probed after him, scoring the concrete and turning the puddles of sewer water into steam.
Then a subway grating gave way beneath him.
As he fell, he knew that the grating must have been weakened by the lancing beam. Blind luck! But he had to land on his feet. He had to stay conscious, drag himself away from the opening, or his body would be lying in full view of the opening, an easy target for hunters standing on the edge.
He tried to twist in mid-air, too late. He landed heavily on his shoulders and his head slammed against an iron stanchion. But the need to stay conscious was so great that he pulled himself to his feet.
He had to drag himself out of the way, deep into the subway passage, far enough so they couldn’t find him.
But even the first step was too much. Sickeningly, his legs buckled under him. He fell on his face, rolled over and stared at the gaping hole above him.
CONCLUDED NEXT ISSUE (FEBRUARY)
1959
FOREVER
Of all the irksome, frustrating, maddening discoveries—was there no way of keeping it discovered?
WITH so much at stake, Charles Dennison should not have been careless. An inventor cannot afford carelessness, particularly when his invention is extremely valuable and obviously patentable. There are too many grasping hands ready to seize what belongs to someone else, too many men who feast upon the creativity of the innocent.
A touch of paranoia would have served Dennison well; but he was lacking in that vital characteristic of inventors. And he didn’t even realize the full extent of his carelessness until a bullet, fired from a silenced weapon, chipped a granite wall not three inches from his head.
Then he knew. But by then it was too late.
Charles Dennison had been left a more than adequate income by his father. He had gone to Harvard, served a hitch in the Navy, then continued his education at M.I.T. Since the age of thirty-two, he had been engaged in private research, working in his own small laboratory in Riverdale, New York. Plant biology was his field. He published several noteworthy papers, and sold a new insecticide to a development corporation. The royalties helped him to expand his facilities.
Dennison enjoyed working alone. It suited his temperament, which was austere but not unfriendly. Two or three times a year, he would come to New York, see some plays and movies, and do a little serious drinking. He would then return gratefully to his seclusion. He was a bachelor and seemed destined to remain that way.
Not long after his fortieth birthday, Dennison stumbled across an intriguing clue which led him into a different branch of biology. He pursued his clue, developed it, extended it slowly into a hypothesis. After three more years, a lucky accident put the final proofs into his hands.
He had invented a most effective longevity drug. It was not proof against violence; aside from that, however, it could fairly be called an immortality serum.
NOW was the time for caution. But years of seclusion had made Dennison unwary of people and their motives. He was more or less heedless of the world around him; it never occurred to him that the world was not equally heedless of him.
He thought only about his serum. It was valuable and patentable. But was it the sort of thing that should be revealed? Was t
he world ready for an immortality drug?
He had never enjoyed speculation of this sort. But since the atom bomb, many scientists had been forced to look at the ethics of their profession. Dennison looked at his and decided that immortality was inevitable.
Mankind had, throughout its existence, poked and probed into the recesses of nature, trying to figure out how things worked. If one man didn’t discover fire, or the use of the lever, or gunpowder, or the atom bomb, or immortality, another would. Man willed to know all nature’s secrets, and there was no way of keeping them hidden.
Armed with this bleak but comforting philosophy, Dennison packed his formulas and proofs into a briefcase, slipped a two-ounce bottle of the product into a jacket pocket, and left his Riverdale laboratory. It was already evening. He planned to spend the night in a good midtown hotel, see a movie, and proceed to the Patent Office in Washington the following day.
On the subway, Dennison was absorbed in a newspaper. He was barely conscious of the men sitting on either side of him. He became aware of them only when the man on his right poked him firmly in the ribs.
Dennison glanced over and saw the snub nose of a small automatic, concealed from the rest of the car by a newspaper, resting against his side.
“What is this?” Dennison asked.
“Hand it over,” the man said.
Dennison was stunned. How could anyone have known about his discovery? And how could they dare try to rob him in a public subway car?
Then he realized that they were probably just after his money.
“I don’t have much on me,” Dennison said hoarsely, reaching for his wallet.
The man on his left leaned over and slapped the briefcase. “Not money,” he said. “The immortality stuff.”
IN some unaccountable fashion, they knew. What if he refused to give up his briefcase? Would they dare fire the automatic in the subway? It was a very small caliber weapon. Its noise might not even be heard above the subway’s roar. And probably they felt justified in taking the risk for a prize as great as the one Dennison carried.
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