Immortality, Inc

by Robert Sheckley

  He remembered magazine articles and stories he had read. Today there might be free atomic power, undersea farming, world peace, international birth control, interplanetary travel, free love, complete desegregation, a cure for all diseases, and a planned society in which men breathed deep the air of freedom.

  That's what there should be, Blaine thought. But there were less pleasant possibilities. Perhaps a grim-faced Oligarch had Earth in his iron grasp, while a small, dedicated underground struggled toward freedom. Or small, gelatinous alien creatures with outlandish names might have enslaved the human race. Perhaps a new and horrible disease marched unchecked across the land, or possibly the Earth, swept of all culture by hydrogen warfare, struggled painfully back to technological civilization while human wolfpacks roamed the badlands; or a million other equally dismal things could have happened.

  And yet. Blaine thought, mankind showed an historic ability to avoid the extremes of doom as well as the extremes of bliss. Chaos was forever prophesized and Utopia was continually predicted, and neither came to pass.

  Accordingly, Blaine expected that this future would show certain definite improvements over the past, but he expected some deteriorations as well; some old problems would be gone, but certain others would have taken their places.

  “In short,” Blaine said to himself, “I expect that this future will be like all other futures in comparison with their pasts. That's not very specific; but then, I'm not in the predicting or the prophesying business.”

  His thoughts were interrupted by Marie Thorne walking briskly into his room.

  “Good morning,” she said. “How do you feel?”

  “Like a new man,” Blaine said, with a perfectly straight face.

  “Good. Would you sign this, please?” She held out a pen and a typed paper.

  “You’re very damned efficient,” Blaine said. “What am I signing?”

  “Read it,” she said. “It's a release absolving us from any legal responsibility in saving your life.”

  “Did you save it?”

  “Of course. How did you think you got here?”

  “I didn't really think about it,” Blaine admitted.

  “We saved you. But it's against the law to save lives without the potential victim's written consent. There wasn't opportunity for the Rex Corporation lawyers to obtain your consent beforehand. So we'd like to protect ourselves now.”

  “What's the Rex Corporation?”

  She looked annoyed. “Hasn't anyone briefed you yet? You’re inside Rex headquarters now. Our company is as well known today as Flyier-Thiess was in your time.”

  “Who's Flyier-Thiess?”

  “No? Ford, then?”

  “Yeah, Ford. So the Rex Corporation is as well known as Ford. What does it do?”

  “It manufactures Rex Power Systems,” she told him, “which are used to power spaceships, reincarnation machines, hereafter drivers, and the like. It was an application of the Rex Power Systems that snatched you from your car at the moment after death and brought you into the future.”

  “Time travel,” Blaine said. “But how?”

  “That'll be hard to explain,” she said. “You don't have the scientific background. But I'll try. You know that space and time are the same thing, aspects of each other.”

  “They are?”

  “Yes. Like mass and energy. In your age, scientists knew that mass and energy were interchangeable. They were able to deduce the fission-fusion processes of the stars. But they couldn't immediately duplicate those processes, which called for vast amounts of power. It wasn't until they had the knowledge and the available power that they could break down atoms by fission and build up new ones by fusion.”

  “I know this,” Blaine said. “What about time travel?”

  “It followed the same pattern,” she said. “For a long time we've known that space and time are aspects of the same thing. We knew that either space or time could be reduced to fundamental units and transformed into the other by a power process. We could deduce the warping of space-time in the vicinity of supernovae, and we were able to observe the disappearance of a Wolf-Rayet star when its time-conversion rate accelerated. But we had to learn a lot more. And we had to have a power source exponentially higher than you needed to set off the fusion process. When we had all this, we could interchange time units for space units — which is to say, time distances for space distances. We could then travel the distance of, say, a hundred years instead of the interchangeable distance of a hundred parsecs.”

  “I see, after a fashion,” Blaine said. “Would you mind running through it again, slowly?”

  “Later, later,” she said. “Will you please sign the release?”

  The paper stated that he, Thomas Blaine, agreed not to bring suit against the Rex Corporation for their unauthorized saving of his life in the year 1958 and the subsequent transporting of that life to a Receptacle in the year 2110.

  Blaine signed. “Now,” he said, “I'd like to know —”

  He stopped. A teen-age boy had come into the room holding a large poster. “Pardon me. Miss Thorne,” he said, “the Art Department wants to know will this do?”

  The boy held up the poster. It showed an automobile at the moment of smashup. A gigantic stylized hand was reaching down from the sky and plucking the driver from the burning wreck. The caption read: REX DID IT!

  “Not bad,” Marie Thorne said, frowning judiciously. “Tell them to brighten the reds.”

  More people were coming into the room. And Blaine was growing angry. “What's going on?” he asked.

  “Later, later,” Marie Thorne said. “Oh, Mrs. Vaness! What do you think of this poster for a teaser?”

  There were a dozen people in his room now, and more coming. They clustered around Marie Thorne and the poster, ignoring Blaine completely. One man, talking earnestly to a grey-haired woman, sat down on the edge of his bed. And Blaine's temper snapped.

  “Stop it!” Blaine shouted. “I'm sick of this damned rush act. What's the matter with you people, can't you behave like human beings? Now get the hell out of here!”

  “Oh lord,” Marie Thorne sighed, closing her eyes, “He would have to be temperamental. Ed, talk to him.”

  A portly, perspiring middle-aged man came to Blaine's bedside. “Mr. Blaine,” he said earnestly, “didn't we save your life?”

  “I suppose so,” Blaine said sullenly.

  “We didn't have to, you know. It took a lot of time, money and trouble to save your life. But we did it. All we want in return is the publicity value.”

  “Publicity value?”

  “Certainly. You were saved by a Rex Power System.”

  Blaine nodded, understanding now why his rebirth in the future had been accepted so casually by those around him. They had taken a lot of time, money and trouble to bring it about, had undoubtedly discussed it from every possible viewpoint, and now were conscientiously exploiting it.

  “I see,” Blaine said. “You saved me simply in order to use me as a gimmick in an advertising campaign. Is that it?”

  Ed looked unhappy. “Why put it that way? You had a life that needed saving. We had a sales campaign that needed sparking. We took care of both needs, to the mutual benefit of you and the Rex Corporation. Perhaps our motives weren't completely altruistic; would you prefer being dead?”

  Blaine shook his head.

  “Of course not,” Ed agreed. “Your life is of value to you. Better alive today than dead yesterday, eh? Fine. Then why not show us a little gratitude? Why not give us a little cooperation?”

  “I'd like to,” Blaine said, “but you’re moving too fast for me.”

  “I know,” Ed said, “and I sympathize. But you know the advertising game, Mr. Blaine. Timing is crucial. Today you’re news, tomorrow nobody's interested. We have to exploit your rescue right now, while it's hot. Otherwise it's valueless to us.”

  “I appreciate your saving my life,” Blaine said, “even if it wasn't completely altruistic. I'll be gla
d to cooperate.”

  “Thank you, Mr.Blaine,” Ed said. “And please, no questions for a while. You'll get the picture as we go along. Miss Thorne, it's all yours.”

  “Thanks, Ed,” Marie Thorne said. “Now, everybody, we have received a provisional go-ahead from Mr. Reilly, so we'll continue as planned. Billy, you figure out a release for the morning papers. ‘Man from Past’ sort of thing. ”

  “It's been done.”

  “Well? It's always news, isn't it?”

  “I guess once more won't hurt. So. Man from 1988 snatched —”

  “Pardon me,” Blaine said. “1958.”

  “So from 1958 snatched from his smashed car at the moment after death and set into a host body. Brief paragraph about the host body. Then we say that Rex Power Systems performed this snatch over one hundred and fifty-two years of time. We tell ‘em how many ergs of energy we burned, or whatever it is we burn. I'll check with an engineer for the right terms. OK?”

  “Mention that no other power system could have done it,” Joe said. “Mention the new calibration system that made it possible.”

  “They won't use all that.”

  “They might,” Marie Thorne said. “Now, Mrs. Vaness. We want an article on Blaine's feelings when Rex Power Systems snatched him from death. Make it emotional. Give his first sensations in the amazing world of the future. About five thousand words. We'll handle the placement.”

  The grey-haired Mrs. Vaness nodded. “Can I interview him now?”

  “No time,” Miss Thorne said. “Make it up. Thrilled, frightened, astonished, surprised at all the changes that have taken place since his time. Scientific advances. Wants to see Mars. Doesn't like the new fashions. Thinks people were happier in his own day with less gadgets and more leisure. Blaine will OK it. Won't you Blaine?”

  Blaine nodded dumbly.

  “Fine. Last night we recorded his spontaneous reactions. Mike, you and the boys make that into a fifteen minute spin which the public can buy at their local Sensory Shop. Make it a real connoisseur's item for the prestige trade. But open with a short, dignified technical explanation of how Rex made the snatch.”

  “Gotcha,” said Mike.

  “Right. Mr. Brice, you'll line up some solido shows for Blaine to appear on. He'll give his reactions to our age, how it feels, how it compares to his own age. See that Rex gets a mention.”

  “But I don't know anything about this age!” Blaine said.

  “You will,” Marie Thorne told him. “All right, I think that's enough for a start. Let's get rolling. I'm going to show Mr. Reilly what we've planned so far.”

  She turned to Blaine as the others were leaving.

  “Perhaps this seems like shabby treatment. But business is business, no matter what age you’re in. Tomorrow you’re going to be a well-known man, and probably a wealthy one. Under the circumstances, I don't think you have any cause for complaint.”

  She left. Blaine watched her go, slim and self-confident. He wondered what the penalty was, in this day and age, for striking a woman.

  4

  The nurse brought him lunch on a tray. The bearded doctor came in, examined him and declared him perfectly fit. There was not the slightest trace of rebirth depression, he declared, and the death trauma was obviously overrated. No reason why Blaine shouldn't be up and about.

  The nurse came back with clothing, a blue shirt, brown slacks, and soft, bulbous grey shoes. The outfit, she assured him, was quite conservative.

  Blaine ate with good appetite. But before dressing, he examined his new body in the full-length bathroom mirror. It was the first chance he'd had for a careful appraisal.

  His former body had been tall and lean, with straight black hair and a good-humored boyish face. In thirty-two years he had grown used to that quick, deft, easy-moving body. With good grace he had accepted its constitutional flaws, its occasional illnesses, and had glorified them into virtues, into unique properties of the personality that resided within them. For his body's limitations, far more than its capabilities, seemed to express his own particular essence.

  He had been fond of that body. His new body was a shock.

  It was shorter than average, heavily muscled, barrel chested, broad shouldered. It felt top-heavy, for the legs were a little short in proportion to the herculean torso. His hands were large and callused. Blaine made a fist and gazed at it respectfully. He could probably fell an ox with a single blow, if an ox were procurable.

  His face was square and bold, with a prominent jaw, wide cheekbones and a Roman nose. His hair was blonde and curly. His eyes were a steely blue. It was a somewhat handsome, slightly brutal face. “I don't like it,” Blaine said emphatically. “And I hate curly blonde hair.”

  His new body had considerable physical strength; but he had always disliked sheer physical strength. The body looked clumsy, graceless, difficult to manage. It was the kind of body that bumped into chairs and stepped on people's toes, shook hands too vigorously, talked too loudly, and sweated profusely. Clothes would always bulge and constrict this body. It would need continual hard exercise. Perhaps he would even have to diet; the body looked as though it had a slight tendency toward fat.

  “Physical strength is all very well,” Blaine told himself, “if one has a purpose for it. Otherwise it's just a nuisance and a distraction, like wings on a dodo.”

  The body was bad enough. But the face was worse. Blaine had never liked strong, harsh, rough-hewn faces. They were fine for sandhogs, army sergeants, jungle explorers and the like. But not for a man who enjoyed cultured society. Such a face was obviously incapable of subtlety of expression. All nuance, the delicate interplay of line and plane, would be lost. With this face you could grin or frown; only gross emotions would show.

  Experimentally he smiled boyishly at the mirror. The result was a satyr's leer.

  “I've been gypped,” Blaine said bitterly.

  It was apparent to him that the qualities of his present mind and his new body were opposed. Cooperation between them seemed impossible. Of course, his personality might reshape his body; on the other hand, his body might have some demands to make on his personality.

  “We'll see,” Blaine told his formidable body, “we'll see who's boss.”

  On his left shoulder was a long, jagged scar. He wondered how the body had received so grievous a wound. Then he began wondering where the body's real owner was. Could he still be lodged in the brain, lying doggo, waiting for a chance to take over?

  Speculation was useless. Later, perhaps, he would find out. He took a final look at himself in the mirror.

  He didn't like what he saw. He was afraid he never would.

  “Well,” he said at last, “you takes what you gets. Dead men can't be choosers.”

  That was all he could say, for the moment. Blaine turned from the mirror and began dressing.

  Marie Thorne came into his room late in the afternoon. She said, without preamble, “It's off.”

  “Off?”

  “Finished, over, through!” She glared bitterly at him, and began pacing up and down the white room. “The whole publicity campaign around you is off.”

  Blaine stared at her. The news was interesting; but much more interesting were the signs of emotion on Miss Thorne's face. She had been so damnably controlled, so perfectly and grotesquely businesslike. Now there was color in her face, and her small lips were twisted bitterly.

  “I've worked on this idea for two solid years,” she told him. “The company's spent I don't know how many millions to bring you here. Everything's set to roll, and that damned old man says drop the whole thing.”

  She's beautiful, Blaine thought, but her beauty gives her no pleasure. It's a business asset, like grooming, or a good head for liquor, to be used when necessary, and even abused. Too many hands reached to Marie Thorne, he imagined, and she never took any. And when the greedy hands kept reaching she learned contempt, then coldness, and finally self-hatred.

  It's a little fanciful, Blaine thought, b
ut I'll keep it until a better diagnosis comes along.

  “That damned stupid old man,” Marie Thorne was muttering.

  “What old man?”

  “Reilly, our brilliant president.”

  “He decided against the publicity campaign?”

  “He wants it hushed up completely. Oh God, it's just too much! Two years!”

  “But why?” Blaine asked.

  Marie Thorne shook her head wearily. “Two reasons, both of them stupid. First, the legal problem. I told him you'd signed the release, and the lawyers had the rest of the problem in hand, but he's scared. It's almost time for his reincarnation and he doesn't want any possible legal trouble with the government. Can you imagine it? A frightened old man running Rex! Second, he had a talk with that silly, senile old grandfather of his, and his grandfather doesn't like the idea. And that clinched it. After two years!”

  “Just a minute,” Blaine said. “Did you say his reincarnation?”

  “Yes, Reilly's going to try it. Personally I think he'd be smarter to die and get it over with.”

  It was a bitter statement. But Marie Thorne didn't sound bitter making it. She sounded as though she were making a simple statement of fact.

  Blaine said. “You think he should die instead of trying for reincarnation?”

  “I would. But I forgot, you haven't been briefed. I just wish he'd made up his mind earlier. That senile old grandfather butting in now —”

  “Why didn't Reilly ask his grandfather earlier?” Blaine asked.

  “He did. But his grandfather wouldn't talk earlier:”

  “I see. How old is he?”

  “Reilly's grandfather? He was eighty-one when he died.”

  “What?”

  “Yes, he died about sixty years ago. Reilly's father is dead, too, but he won't talk at all, which is a pity because he had good business sense. Why are you staring at me, Blaine? Oh, I forgot you don't know the setup. It's very simple, really.”

  She stood for a moment, brooding. Then she nodded emphatically, whirled and walked to the door.