The Shipshape Miracle: And Other Stories

by Clifford D. Simak

  But he did not allow his face to change. He knew his face would not betray him. His face was too well trained.

  “I know there is an answer,” said the senator. “There’s always been an answer to any question about immortality. You can’t have it until there’s living space. Living space to throw away, more than we ever think we’ll need, and a fair chance to find more of it if it’s ever needed.”

  Dr. Smith nodded. “That’s the answer, senator. The only answer I can give.”

  He sat silent for a moment, then he said: “Let me assure you on one point, senator. When Extrasolar Research finds the living space, we’ll have the immortality.”

  The senator heaved himself out of the chair, stood planted solidly on his feet.

  “It’s good to hear you say that, doctor,” he said. “It is very heartening. I thank you for the time you gave me.”

  Out on the street, the senator thought bitterly:

  They have it now. They have immortality. All they’re waiting for is the living space and another hundred years will find that. Another hundred years will simply have to find it.

  Another hundred years, he told himself, just one more continuation, and I would be in for good and all.

  Mr. Andrews: We must be sure there is a divorcement of life continuation from economics. A man who has money must not be allowed to purchase additional life, either through the payment of money or the pressure of influence, while another man is doomed to die a natural death simply because he happens to be poor.

  Chairman Leonard: I don’t believe that situation has ever been in question.

  Mr. Andrews: Nevertheless, it is a matter which must be emphasized again and again. Life continuation must not be a commodity to be sold across the counter at so many dollars for each added year of life.

  —From the Records of a hearing before the science subcommittee of the public policy committee of the World House of Representatives.

  The senator sat before the chessboard and idly worked at the problem. Idly, since his mind was on other things than chess.

  So they had immortality, had it and were waiting, holding it a secret until there was assurance of sufficient living space. Holding it a secret from the people and from the government and from the men and women who had spent many lifetimes working for the thing which already had been found.

  For Smith had spoken, not as a man who was merely confident, but as a man who knew. When Extrasolar Research finds the living space, he’d said, we’ll have immortality. Which meant they had it now. Immortality was not predictable. You would not know you’d have it; you would only know if and when you had it.

  The senator moved a bishop and saw that he was wrong. He slowly pulled it back.

  Living space was the key, and not living space alone, but economic living space, self-supporting in terms of food and other raw materials, but particularly in food. For if living space had been all that mattered, Man had it in Mars and Venus and the moons of Jupiter. But not one of those worlds was self-supporting. They did not solve the problem.

  Living space was all they needed and in a hundred years they’d have that. Another hundred years was all that anyone would need to come into possession of the common human heritage of immortality.

  Another continuation would give me that hundred years, said the senator, talking to himself. A hundred years and some to spare, for this time I’ll be careful of myself. I’ll lead a cleaner life. Eat sensibly and cut out liquor and tobacco and the woman-chasing.

  There were ways and means, of course. There always were. And he would find them, for he knew all the dodges. After five hundred years in world government, you got to know them all. If you didn’t know them, you simply didn’t last.

  Mentally he listed the possibilities as they occurred to him.

  ONE: A person could engineer a continuation for someone else and then have that person assign the continuation to him. It would be costly, of course, but it might be done.

  You’d have to find someone you could trust and maybe you couldn’t find anyone you could trust that far—for life continuation was something hard to come by. Most people, once they got it, wouldn’t give it back.

  Although on second thought, it probably wouldn’t work. For there’d be legal angles. A continuation was a gift of society to one specific person to be used by him alone. It would not be transferable. It would not be legal property. It would not be something that one owned. It could not be bought or sold, it could not be assigned.

  If the person who had been granted a continuation died before he got to use it—died of natural causes, of course, of wholly natural causes that could be provable—why, maybe, then—But still it wouldn’t work. Not being property, the continuation would not be part of one’s estate. It could not be bequeathed. It most likely would revert to the issuing agency.

  Cross that one off, the senator told himself.

  TWO: He might travel to New York and talk to the party’s executive secretary. After all, Gibbs and Scott were mere messengers. They had their orders to carry out the dictates of the party and that was all. Maybe if he saw someone in authority—

  But, the senator scolded himself, that is wishful thinking. The party’s through with me. They’ve pushed their continuation racket as far as they dare push it and they have wrangled about all they figure they can get. They don’t dare ask for more and they need my continuation for someone else most likely—someone who’s a comer; someone who has vote appeal.

  And I, said the senator, am an old has-been.

  Although I’m a tricky old rascal, and ornery if I have to be, and slippery as five hundred years of public life can make one.

  After that long, said the senator, parenthetically, you have no more illusions, not even of yourself.

  I couldn’t stomach it, he decided. I couldn’t live with myself if I went crawling to New York—and a thing has to be pretty bad to make me feel like that. I’ve never crawled before and I’m not crawling now, not even for an extra hundred years and a shot at immortality.

  Cross that one off, too, said the senator.

  THREE: Maybe someone could be bribed.

  Of all the possibilities, that sounded the most reasonable. There always was someone who had a certain price and always someone else who could act as intermediary. Naturally, a world senator could not get mixed up directly in a deal of that sort.

  It might come a little high, but what was money for? After all, he reconciled himself, he’d been a frugal man of sorts and had been able to lay away a wad against such a day as this.

  The senator moved a rook and it seemed to be all right, so he left it there.

  Of course, once he managed the continuation, he would have to disappear. He couldn’t flaunt his triumph in the party’s face. He couldn’t take a chance of someone asking how he’d been continuated. He’d have to become one of the people, seek to be forgotten, live in some obscure place and keep out of the public eye.

  Norton was the man to see. No matter what one wanted, Norton was the man to see. An appointment to be secured, someone to be killed, a concession on Venus or a spaceship contract—Norton did the job. All quietly and discreetly and no questions asked. That is, if you had the money. If you didn’t have the money, there was no use of seeing Norton.

  Otto came into the room on silent feet.

  “A gentleman to see you, sir,” he said.

  The senator stiffened upright in his chair.

  “What do you mean by sneaking up on me?” he shouted. “Always pussyfooting. Trying to startle me. After this you cough or fall over a chair or something so I’ll know that you’re around.”

  “Sorry, sir,” said Otto. “There’s a gentleman here. And there are those letters on the desk to read.”

  “I’ll read the letters later,” said the senator.

  “Be sure you don’t forget,” Otto told him, sti
ffly.

  “I never forget,” said the senator. “You’d think I was getting senile, the way you keep reminding me.”

  “There’s a gentleman to see you,” Otto said patiently. “A Mr. Lee.”

  “Anson Lee, perhaps.”

  Otto sniffed. “I believe that was his name. A newspaper person, sir.”

  “Show him in,” said the senator.

  He sat stolidly in his chair and thought: Lee’s found out about it. Somehow he’s ferreted out the fact the party’s thrown me over. And he’s here to crucify me.

  He may suspect, but he cannot know. He may have heard a rumor, but he can’t be sure. The party would keep mum, must necessarily keep mum, since it can’t openly admit its traffic in life continuation. So Lee, having heard a rumor, had come to blast it out of me, to catch me by surprise and trip me up with words.

  I must not let him do it, for once the thing is known, the wolves will come in packs knee deep.

  Lee was walking into the room and the senator rose and shook his hand.

  “Sorry to disturb you, senator,” Lee told him, “but I thought maybe you could help me.”

  “Anything at all,” the senator said, affably. “Anything I can. Sit down, Mr. Lee.”

  “Perhaps you read my story in the morning paper,” said Lee. “The one on Dr. Carson’s disappearance.”

  “No,” said the senator. “No, I’m afraid I—”

  He rumbled to a stop, astounded.

  He hadn’t read the paper!

  He had forgotten to read the paper!

  He always read the paper. He never failed to read it. It was a solemn rite, starting at the front and reading straight through to the back, skipping only those sections which long ago he’d found not to be worth the reading.

  He’d had the paper at the institute and he had been interrupted when the girl told him that Dr. Smith would see him. He had come out of the office and he’d left the paper in the reception room.

  It was a terrible thing. Nothing, absolutely nothing, should so upset him that he forgot to read the paper.

  “I’m afraid I didn’t read the story,” the senator said lamely. He simply couldn’t force himself to admit that he hadn’t read the paper.

  “Dr. Carson,” said Lee, “was a biochemist, a fairly famous one. He died ten years or so ago, according to an announcement from a little village in Spain, where he had gone to live. But I have reason to believe, senator, that he never died at all, that he may still be living.”

  “Hiding?” asked the senator.

  “Perhaps,” said Lee. “Although there seems no reason that he should. His record is entirely spotless.”

  “Why do you doubt he died, then?”

  “Because there’s no death certificate. And he’s not the only one who died without benefit of certificate.”

  “Hm-m-m,” said the senator.

  “Galloway, the anthropologist, died five years ago. There’s no certificate. Henderson, the agricultural expert, died six years ago. There’s no certificate. There are a dozen more I know of and probably many that I don’t.”

  “Anything in common?” asked the senator. “Any circumstances that might link these people?”

  “Just one thing,” said Lee. “They were all continuators.”

  “I see,” said the senator. He clasped the arms of his chair with a fierce grip to keep his hands from shaking.

  “Most interesting,” he said. “Very interesting.”

  “I know you can’t tell me anything officially,” said Lee, “but I thought you might give me a fill-in, an off-the-record background. You wouldn’t let me quote you, of course, but any clues you might give me, any hint at all—”

  He waited hopefully.

  “Because I’ve been close to the Life Continuation people?” asked the senator.

  Lee nodded. “If there’s anything to know, you know it, senator. You headed the committee that held the original hearings on life continuation. Since then you’ve held various other congressional posts in connection with it. Only this morning you saw Dr. Smith.”

  “I can’t tell you anything,” mumbled the senator. “I don’t know anything. You see, it’s a matter of policy—”

  “I had hoped you would help me, senator.”

  “I can’t,” said the senator. “You’ll never believe it, of course, but I really can’t.”

  He sat silently for a moment and then he asked a question: “You say all these people you mention were continuators. You checked, of course, to see if their applications had been renewed?”

  “I did,” said Lee. “There are no renewals for any one of them—at least no records of renewals. Some of them were approaching death limit and they actually may be dead by now, although I doubt that any of them died at the time or place announced.”

  “Interesting,” said the senator. “And quite a mystery, too.”

  Lee deliberately terminated the discussion. He gestured at the chessboard. “Are you an expert, senator?”

  The senator shook his head. “The game appeals to me. I fool around with it. It’s a game of logic and also a game of ethics. You are perforce a gentleman when you play it. You observe certain rules of correctness of behavior.”

  “Like life, senator?”

  “Like life should be,” said the senator. “When the odds are too terrific, you resign. You do not force your opponent to play out to the bitter end. That’s ethics. When you see that you can’t win, but that you have a fighting chance, you try for the next best thing—a draw. That’s logic.”

  Lee laughed, a bit uncomfortably. “You’ve lived according to those rules, senator?”

  “I’ve done my best,” said the senator, trying to sound humble.

  Lee rose. “I must be going, senator.”

  “Stay and have a drink.”

  Lee shook his head. “Thanks, but I have work to do.”

  “I owe you a drink,” said the senator. “Remind me of it sometime.”

  For a long time after Lee left, Senator Homer Leonard sat unmoving in his chair.

  Then he reached out a hand and picked up a knight to move it, but his fingers shook so that he dropped it and it clattered on the board.

  Any person who gains the gift of life continuation by illegal or extra-legal means, without bona fide recommendation or proper authorization through recognized channels, shall be, in effect, excommunicated from the human race. The facts of that person’s guilt, once proved, shall be published by every means at humanity’s command throughout the Earth and to every corner of the Earth so that all persons may know and recognize him. To further insure such recognition and identification, said convicted person must wear at all times, conspicuously displayed upon his person, a certain badge which shall advertise his guilt. While he may not be denied the ordinary basic requirements of life, such as food, adequate clothing, a minimum of shelter and medical care, he shall not be allowed to partake of or participate in any of the other refinements of civilization. He will not be allowed to purchase any item in excess of the barest necessities for the preservation of life, health and decency; he shall be barred from all endeavors and normal associations of humankind; he shall not have access to nor benefit of any library, lecture hall, amusement place or other facility, either private or public, designed for instruction, recreation or entertainment. Nor may any person, under certain penalties hereinafter set forth, knowingly converse with him or establish any human relationship whatsoever with him. He will be suffered to live out his life within the framework of the human community, but to all intent and purpose he will be denied all the privileges and obligations of a human being. And the same provisions as are listed above shall apply in full and equal force to any person or persons who shall in any way knowingly aid such a person to obtain life continuation by other than legal means.

  From the Code of Life Conti
nuation.

  “What you mean,” said J. Barker Norton, “is that the party all these years has been engineering renewals of life continuation for you. Paying you off for services well rendered.”

  The senator nodded miserably.

  “And now that you’re on the verge of losing an election, they figure you aren’t worth it any longer and have refused to ask for a renewal.”

  “In curbstone language,” said the senator, “that sums it up quite neatly.”

  “And you come running to me,” said Norton. “What in the world do you think I can do about it?”

  The senator leaned forward. “Let’s put it on a business basis, Norton. You and I have worked together before.”

  “That’s right,” said Norton. “Both of us cleaned up on that spaceship deal.”

  The senator said: “I want another hundred years and I’m willing to pay for it. I have no doubt you can arrange it for me.”

  “How?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” said the senator. “I’m leaving that to you. I don’t care how you do it.”

  Norton leaned back in his chair and made a tent out of his fingers.

  “You figure I could bribe someone to recommend you. Or bribe some continuation technician to give you a renewal without authorization.”

  “Those are a pair of excellent ideas,” agreed the senator.

  “And face excommunication if I were found out,” said Norton. “Thanks, senator, I’m having none of it.”

  The senator sat impassively, watching the face of the man across the desk.

  “A hundred thousand,” the senator said quietly.

  Norton laughed at him.

  “A half a million, then.”

  “Remember that excommunication, senator. It’s got to be worth my while to take a chance like that.”

  “A million,” said the senator. “And that’s absolutely final.”

  “A million now,” said Norton. “Cold cash. No receipt. No record of the transaction. Another million when and if I can deliver.”

  The senator rose slowly to his feet, his face a mask to hide the excitement that was stirring in him. The excitement and the naked surge of exultation. He kept his voice level.