Just wait, buzzard meat, he silently told the guard. Your time's a-coming. Just wait, wait just a bit.
The guard moved away, walking slowly up and down the line of prisoners laboring under the white Mississippi sun. Piggot-Blaine tried to spit, but couldn't work up enough saliva. He thought, you talk about your fine modern world? Talk about your big old spaceships, your automatic farms, your big fine fat old hereafter? Think that's how it is? Then ask ‘em how they build the roads in Quilleg County, Northern Mississippi. They won't tell you, so you better look for yourself and find out. Cause that's the kind of world it really is!
Arny, working in front of him, whispered, “You ready, Otis? You ready for it?”
“I'm a-ready,” Piggot-Blaine whispered, his broad fingers clenching and unclenching on the pick's plastic handle. “I'm past ready, Arny.”
“In a second, then. Watch Jeff.”
Piggot-Blaine's hairy chest swelled expectantly. He brushed lank brown hair from his eyes and watched Jeff, five men ahead on the chain. Piggot-Blaine waited, his shoulders aching from sunburn. There were callused scars on his ankles from the hoofcuffs, and old seams on his back from earlier whippings. He had a raging thirst in his gut. But no dipperful of water could ever cut that thirst, nothing could, that crazy thirst that brought him in here after he'd dismembered Gainsville's single saloon and killed that stinking old Indian.
Jeff's hand moved. The chained line of prisoners sprang forward. Piggot-Blaine jumped toward the thin-faced guard, his pick swung high, as the guard dropped his whip and fumbled to bring up the shotgun.
“Buzzard meat!” Piggot-Blaine screamed, and brought the pick down fair in the guard's fore head.
“Get the keys!”
Piggot-Blaine grabbed the keys from the dead guard's belt. He heard a shotgun go off, heard a high scream of agony. Anxiously he looked up…
Ramirez-Blaine was piloting his heli above the flat Texas plains, heading for El Paso. He was a serious young man and he paid strict attention to his work, coaxing the last knot of speed out of the old heli so he could reach El Paso before Johnson's Hardware Store closed.
He handled the balky rattletrap with care, and only an occasional thought came through his concentration, quick thoughts about the altitude and compass readings, a dance in Guanajuato next week, the price of hides in Ciudad Juarez.
The plain was mottled green and yellow below him. He glanced at his watch, then at the airspeed indicator.
Yes, Ramirez-Blaine thought, he would make El Paso before the store closed! He might even have time for a little…
Tyler-Blaine wiped his mouth on his sleeve and sopped up the last of the grease gravy on a piece of corn bread. He belched, pushed his chair back from the kitchen table and stood up. With elaborate unconcern he took a cracked bowl from the pantry and filled it with scraps of pork, a few greens, and a big piece of corn bread.
“Ed,” his wife said, “what are you doing?”
He glanced at her. She was gaunt, tangle-haired, and faded past her years. He looked away, not answering.
“Ed! Tell me, Ed!”
Tyler-Blaine looked at her in annoyance, feeling his ulcer stir at the sound of that sharp, worried voice. Sharpest voice in all California, he told himself, and he'd married it. Sharp voice, sharp nose, sharp elbows and knees, breastless and barren to boot. Legs to support a body, but not for a second's delight. A belly for filling, not for touching. Of all the girls in California he'd doubtless picked the sorriest, just like the damn fool his Uncle Rafe always said he was.
“Where you taking that bowl of food?” she asked.
“Out to feed the dog,” Tyler-Blaine said, moving toward the door.
“We ain't got no dog! Oh Ed, don't do it, not tonight!”
“I'm doin‘ it,” he said, glad of her discomfort.
“Please, not tonight. Let him shift for himself somewhere else. Ed, listen to me! What if the town found out?”
“It's past sundown,” Tyler-Blaine said, standing beside the door with his bowl of food.
“People spy,” she said. “Ed, if they find out they'll lynch us, you know they will.”
“You'd look mighty spry from the end of a rope,” Tyler-Blaine remarked, opening the door.
“You do it just to spite me!” she cried.
He closed the door behind him. Outside, it was deep twilight. Tyler-Blaine stood in his yard near the unused chicken coop, looking around. The only house near his was the Flannagan's, a hundred yards away. But they minded their own business. He waited to make sure none of the town kids were snooping around. Then he walked forward, carefully holding the bowl of food.
He reached the edge of the scraggly woods and set the bowl down. “It's all right,” he called softly. “Come out, Uncle Rafe.”
A man crawled out of the woods on all fours. His face was leaden-white, his lips bloodless, his eyes blank and staring, his features coarse and unfinished, like iron before tempering or clay before firing. A long cut across his neck had festered, and his right leg, where the townsfolk had broken it, hung limp and useless.
“Thanks, boy,” said Rafe, Tyler-Blaine's zombie uncle.
The zombie quickly gulped down the contents of the bowl. When he had finished, Tyler-Blaine asked, “How you feeling, Uncle Rafe?”
“Ain't feeling nothing. This old body's about through. Another couple days, maybe a week, and I'll be off your hands.”
“I'll take care of you,” Tyler-Blaine said, “just as long as you can stay alive, Uncle Rafe. I wish I could bring you into the house.”
“No,” the zombie said, “they'd find out. This is risky enough… Boy, how's that skinny wife of yours?”
“Just as mean as ever,” Tyler-Blaine sighed.
The zombie made a sound like laughter. “I warned you, boy, ten years ago I warned you not to marry that gal. Didn't I?”
“You sure did, Uncle Rafe. You was the only one had sense. Sure wish I'd listened to you.”
“Better you had, boy. Well, I'm going back to my shelter.”
“You feel confident, Uncle?” Tyler-Blaine asked anxiously.
“That I do.”
“And you'll try to die confident?”
“I will, boy. And I'll get me into that Threshold, never you fear. And when I do, I'll keep my promise. I truly will.”
“Thank you, Uncle Rafe.”
“I'm a man of my word. I'll haunt her, boy, if the good Lord grants me Threshold. First comes that fat doctor that made me this. But then I'll haunt her. I'll haunt her crazy. I'll haunt her ‘til she runs the length of the state of California away from you!”
“Thanks, Uncle Rafe.”
The zombie made a sound like laughter and crawled back into the scraggly woods. Tyler-Blaine shivered uncontrollably for a moment, then picked up the empty bowl and walked back to the sagging washboard house…
Mariner-Blaine adjusted the strap of her bathing suit so that it clung more snugly to her slim, supple young body. She slipped the air tank over her back, picked up her respirator and walked toward the pressure lock.
“Janice?”
“Yes mother?” she said, turning, her face smooth and expressionless.
“Where are you going, dear?”
“Just out for a swim, Mom. I thought maybe I'd look at the new gardens on Level 12.”
“You aren't by any chance planning to see Tom Leuwin, are you?”
Had her mother guessed? Mariner-Blaine smoothed her black hair and said, “Certainly not.”
“All right,” her mother said, half smiling and obviously not believing her. “Try to be home early, dear. You know how worried your father gets.”
She stooped and gave her mother a quick kiss, then hurried into the pressure lock. Mother knew, she was sure of it! And wasn't stopping her! But then, why should she? After all, she was seventeen, plenty old enough to do anything she wanted. Kids grew up faster these days than they did in Mom's time, though parents didn't seem to realize it. Parents didn't realize very
much. They just wanted to sit around and plan out new acres for the farm. Their idea of fun was to listen to some old classic recording, a Bop piece or a Rock ‘n’ Roll, and follow it with scores and talk about how free and expressionistic their ancestors had been. And sometimes they'd go through big, glossy art books filled with reproductions of 20th century Comic Strips, and talk about the lost art of satire. Their idea of a really Big Night was to go down to the gallery and stare reverently at the collection of Saturday Evening Post covers from the Great Period. But all that longhair stuff bored her. Nuts to art, she liked the sensories.
Mariner-Blaine adjusted her face mask and respirator, put on her flippers and turned the valve. In a few seconds the lock was filled with water. Impatiently she waited until the pressure had equalized with the water outside. Then the lock opened automatically and she shot out.
Her dad's pressure farm was at the hundred foot level, not far from the mammoth underwater bulk of Hawaii. She turned downward, descending into the green bloom with quick, powerful strokes. Tom would be waiting for her at the coral caves.
The darkness grew as Mariner-Blaine descended. She switched on her headlamp and took a firmer bite on her respirator. Was it true, she wondered, that soon the undersea farmers would be able to grow their own gills? That's what her science teacher said, and maybe it would happen in her own lifetime. How would she look with gills? Mysterious, probably, sleek and strange, a fish goddess.
Besides, she could always cover them with her hair if they weren't becoming.
In the yellow glow of her lamp she saw the coral caves ahead, a red and pink branched labyrinth with cozy, airlocked places deep within, where you could be sure of privacy. And she saw Tom.
Uncertainty flooded her. Gosh, what if she had a baby? Tom had assured her it would be all right, but he was only nineteen. Was she right in doing this? They had talked about it often enough, and she had shocked him with her frankness. But talking and doing were very different things. What would Tom think of her if she said no? Could she make a joke out of it, pretend she'd just been teasing him?
Long and golden, Tom swam beside her toward the caves. He flashed hello in finger talk. A trigger fish swam by, and then a small shark.
What was she going to do? The caves were very near, looming dark and suggestive before them. Tom smiled at her, and she could feel her heart melting…
Elgin-Blaine sat upright, realizing that he must have dozed off. He was aboard a small motor vessel, sitting in a deck chair with blankets tucked around him. The little ship rolled and pitched in the cross-sea, but overhead the sun was brilliant, and the trade wind carried the diesel smoke away in a wide dark plume.
“You feeling better, Mr. Elgin?”
Elgin-Blaine looked up at a small, bearded man wearing a captain's cap. “Fine, just fine,” he said.
“We’re almost there,” the captain said.
Elgin-Blaine nodded, disoriented, trying to take stock of himself. He thought hard and remembered that he was shorter than average, heavily muscled, barrel chested, broad shouldered, with legs a little short for such a herculean torso, with large and callused hands. There was an old, jagged scar on his shoulder, souvenir of a hunting accident…
Elgin and Blaine merged.
Then he realized that he was back at last in his own body. Blaine was his name, and Elgin was the pseudonym under which Carl Orc and Joe must have shipped him.
The long flight was over! His mind and his body were together again!
“We were told you weren't well, sir,” the captain said. “But you've been in this coma for so long —”
“I'm fine now,” Blaine told him. “Are we far from the Marquesas?”
“Not far. The island of Nuku Hiva is just a few hours away.”
The captain returned to his wheelhouse. And Blaine thought about the many personalities he had met and mingled with.
He respected the staunch and independent old Dyersen walking slowly back to his cottage, hoped young Sandy Thompson would return to Mars, felt regret for the warped and murderous Piggot, enjoyed his meeting with the serious and upright Juan Ramirez, felt mingled sorrow and contempt for the sly and ineffectual Ed Tyler, prayed for the best for pretty Janice Mariner.
They were with him still. Good or bad, he wished them all well. They were his family now. Distant relatives, cousins and uncles he would never meet again, nieces and nephews upon whose destiny he would brood.
Like all families they were a mixed lot; but they were his, and he could never forget them.
“Nuku Hiva in sight!” the captain called.
Blaine saw, on the edge of the horizon, a tiny black dot capped by a white cumulus cloud. He rubbed his forehead vigorously, determined to think no more about his adopted family. There were present realities to deal with. Soon he would be coming to his new home; and that required a little serious thinking.
31
The ship steamed slowly into Taio Hae Bay. The captain, a proud native son, volunteered to Blaine the principal facts about his new home.
The Marquesas Islands, he explained, were composed of two fairly distinct island groups, all of them rugged and mountainous. Once the group had been called the Cannibal Islands, and the Marquesans had been noted for their ability at cutting out a trading ship or massacring a black-birding schooner. The French had acquired the islands in 1842, and granted them autonomy in 1993. Nuku Hiva was the main island and capital for the group. Its highest peak, Temetiu, was nearly four thousand feet high. Its port city, Taiohae, boasted a population of almost five thousand souls. It was a quiet, easy-going place, the captain said, and it was considered a sort of shrine all over the hurried, bustling South Seas. For here was the last refuge of unspoiled 20th century Polynesia.
Blaine nodded, absorbing little of the captain's lecture, more impressed by the sight of the great dark mountain ahead laced with silver waterfalls, and by the sound of the ocean pounding against the island's granite face.
He decided he was going to like it here.
Soon the ship was docked at the town wharf, and Blaine stepped off to view the town of Taiohae.
He saw a supermarket and three movie theaters, rows of ranch-style houses, many palm trees, some low white stores with plate glass windows, numerous cocktail lounges, dozens of automobiles, a gas station and a traffic light. The sidewalks were filled with people wearing colorful shirts and pressed slacks. All had on sunglasses.
So this was the last refuge of unspoiled 20th century Polynesia, Blaine thought. A Florida town set in the South Seas!
Still, what more could he expect in the year 2110? Ancient Polynesia was as dead as Merrie England or Bourbon France. And 20th century Florida, he remembered, could be very pleasant indeed.
He walked down Main Street, and saw a notice on a building stating that Postmaster Alfred Gray had been appointed Hereafter, Inc. representative for the Marquesas Group. And further on, he came to a small black building with a sign on it that said Public Suicide Booth.
Ah, Blaine thought sardonically, modern civilization is encroaching even here! Next thing you know they'll be setting up a Spiritual Switchboard. And where will we be then?
He had reached the end of town. As he started back, a stout, red-faced man hurried up to him
“Mr Elgin? Mr. Thomas Elgin?”
“That's me,” Blaine said, with a certain apprehension.
“Terribly sorry I missed you at the dock,” said the red-faced man, mopping his wide and gleaming forehead with a bandanna. “No excuse, of course. Sheer oversight on my part. The languor of the islands. Inevitable after a while. Oh, I'm Davis, owner of the Point Boatyard. Welcome to Taiohae, Mr. Elgin.”
“Thank you, Mr. Davis” Blaine said.
“On the contrary. I want to thank you again for answering my advertisement,” Davis said. “I've been needing a Master Boatwright for months. You have no idea! And frankly, I didn't expect to attract a man of your qualifications.”
“Ummm,” Blaine said, surprised and p
leased at the thoroughness of Carl Orc's preparations.
“Not many men around with a grounding in 20th century boatbuilding methods,” Davis said sadly. “Lost art. Have you had a look around the island?”
“Just very briefly,” Blaine said.
“Think you'll want to stay?” Davis asked anxiously. “You have no idea how hard it is getting a good boatwright to settle down in a quiet little backwater like this. No sooner do they get here, they want to go charging off to the big booming cities like Papeete or Apia. I know wages are higher in places like that, and there's more amusements and society and things. But Taiohae has a charm of its own.”
“I've had my fill of the cities,” Blaine said, smiling. “I'm not likely to go charging off, Mr. Davis.”
“Good, good!” Davis said. “Don't bother coming to work for a few days, Mr. Elgin. Rest, take it easy, look around our island. It's the last refuge of primitive Polynesia, you know. Here are the keys to your house. Number one Temetiu Road, straight up the mountain there. Shall I show you the way?”
“I'll find it,” Blaine said. “Thanks very much, Mr. Davis.”
“Thank you, Mr. Elgin. I'll drop in on you tomorrow after you’re a bit more settled. Then you can meet some of our townsfolk. In fact, the mayor's wife is giving a party Thursday. Or is it Friday? Anyhow, I'll find out and let you know.”
They shook hands and Blaine started up Temetiu Road, to his new home.
It was a small, freshly painted bungalow with a spectacular view of Nuku Hiva's three southern bays. Blaine admired the sight for a few minutes, then tried the door. It was unlocked, and he walked in.
“It's about time you got here.”
Blaine just stared, not able to believe what he saw.
“Marie!”
She appeared as slim, lovely and cool as ever. But she was nervous. She talked rapidly and avoided meeting his eyes.
“I thought it would be best if I made the final arrangements on the spot,” she said. “I've been here for two days, waiting for you. You've met Mr. Davis, haven't you? He seems like a very nice little man.”
Immortality, Inc Page 17